Pager Acknowledgement messages

[mengcfs]

Hi all,
What is the go with these messages.  I have seen several from different CFS Brigades and SES Units. Who does that page go to? Is it a part of TIMS?

SA FIRE & RESCUE: PAGER ACKNOWLEDGEMENT. INCIDENT NUMBER 43. CFS - HAPPY VALLEY. (PERSON'S NAME), LT2 - Call Out Acknowledgement

[SA Firey]

It is a trial by a few stations for the SACAD system Adam.

[pumprescue]

Nothing to do with SACAD, its a trial in response to those brigades who have complained they can't get through on the phone...it certainly has its bugs....wouldn't rely on it at all.

[mengcfs]

Nothing to do with SACAD, its a trial in response to those brigades who have complained they can't get through on the phone...it certainly has its bugs....wouldn't rely on it at all.

Can't get thru to who on the phone...AF?
How does this system work. What does the member need to do to ack?

[mengcfs]

Never mind, I found this.

Probably in relation to the trial of the new pager acknowledgment procedure, a few CFS, SES and retained MFS stations are trialing it starting on Monday (15th). Basically acknowledging the page with link paging, who will then page Adelaide Fire with the name of the brigade and the person that called. A message then pops up on their screen with the details.

Will mean that many more operators are able to take the calls than currently exists in Adelaide Fire, one of the problems on a big day (and sometimes not even a big day) is that you can't through to acknowledge.

Thanks mattb  :wink:

[Andrew K]

never had the problem of not getting through to adelaide fire, had plenty of problems getting put on hold at link paging. couple of times i;ve had to use the web site to drop crew pages

[CFS_Firey]

never had the problem of not getting through to adelaide fire, had plenty of problems getting put on hold at link paging. couple of times i;ve had to use the web site to drop crew pages

It was in response to the storm events last year, when things were so hectic in the comms centres the non emergency lines weren't being answered.

The acknowledgement line is different to the general link paging line, so they shouldn't get put on hold as long.

[pumprescue]

Issues I have noticed is Link or whoever it is have trouble with agency names and spelling and the message getting to AF takes sometimes more than 10 mins which is well over the default time limit. I prefer to use the radio to ack the page.

[Darius]

Issues I have noticed is Link or whoever it is have trouble with agency names and spelling and the message getting to AF takes sometimes more than 10 mins which is well over the default time limit. I prefer to use the radio to ack the page.

do you know for certain these delays you mention are within Link? not that the brigade takes 10mins to phone them?

once you are speaking to an operator they fill in the fields directly on their screen and send it, it should appear on the paging system within seconds. If not then report it.

[misterteddy]

SAAS gave away using Link as their notification method for responding to pages for Country staff. Quicker to drive the 3kms to the station, open it, get the keys, get the truck and call up. They tried another provider as well....worse

[pumprescue]

Yes Darius I am very sure it wasn't the brigade phoning in.

[mattb]

We gave up waiting for someone to answer last night, this was at 3am, obviously all the operators disappear after hours.

Also yesterday we became the Northvale brigade, not bad considering I was under the impression they had a drop down list of brigades to choose from.

Then this morning it took them 15 mins to send the page to Adelaide Fire. We had put a stop back on the job by the time my brigade and another brigades acknowledgment page had been sent.

I could go on but I probably don't need to, my feedback has all been passed up the chain of command to be reviewed as part of the trial.

[SA Firey]

Link is now called Quantum Multimedia :wink:

[Alex]

We gave up waiting for someone to answer last night, this was at 3am, obviously all the operators disappear after hours.

Also yesterday we became the Northvale brigade, not bad considering I was under the impression they had a drop down list of brigades to choose from.

Then this morning it took them 15 mins to send the page to Adelaide Fire. We had put a stop back on the job by the time my brigade and another brigades acknowledgment page had been sent.

I could go on but I probably don't need to, my feedback has all been passed up the chain of command to be reviewed as part of the trial.

Matt. Please make sure you are recording any issue as well to forward on at the end of the trial as a larger register!

[pumprescue]

I think most people trialling it have had issues....please put feed back in.

[mattb]

Don't worry, my feedback has been passed up the chain.

Today's effort was pretty good, 20 minutes from the time the call was made until the time the page was sent. Not to mention the time wasted waiting for them to answer the phone, and then having to spell names three times for them to get it right.

[Bagyassfirey]

03-09-11 11:19:25 SA FIRE & RESCUE: PAGER ACKNOWLEDGEMENT. INCIDENT NUMBER 35. KANGAROO BRIGADE. KYM VAWSER FIRE FIGHTER - Adelaide Fire Pager Ack

A big welcome to the newest brigade to the CFS Family...... :roll:

[misterteddy]

03-09-11 11:19:25 SA FIRE & RESCUE: PAGER ACKNOWLEDGEMENT. INCIDENT NUMBER 35. KANGAROO BRIGADE. KYM VAWSER FIRE FIGHTER - Adelaide Fire Pager Ack

A big welcome to the newest brigade to the CFS Family...... :roll:

someone left the top gate open again didnt they?

[pumprescue]

Just stop using it, tell the CFS and MFS powers to be that its useless, and lets move on.

I prefer the radio option myself.

[BundyBear]

The system is painful but the trial goes on, only the mental patients running the asylum in South Australia for CRD and communications would know why?

[mattb]

The trial finishes on Friday, I think we can let it run it's course and then the gurus can evaluate the feedback and make a decision (god help us if they decide to implement this for everyone though).

[mattb]

It appears that many brigades haven't realised the trial finished two weeks ago, lots of people still calling in on this system.

[Alex]

Matt. The end result was that the trial had finished. Feedback was being considered. But it was still to be available as a method of acknowledging for brigades/units.

I would encourage people not too tho, as since they are not paying for it to be a priority paging service, it is not reliable.

[mattb]

Ok, we gave up on it as soon as we could. We had too many problems with it, mainly due to operators unable to understand what we were saying.

[John]

Our brigade is still using the new pager acknowledgement system and we find it very good. The operators are polite and understanding as it takes me no longer than 20 secs to place the message.

But I guess with most new systems in CFS, some "Chardonnay" brigades continually want to be negative unless it's their idea.

Matt, "get with the times" be open to new systems of work, after all it was your Region that insisted they need a fourth option to acknowledge pager messages with Adelaide Fire!!! 

What's your next suggestion.....carrier pigeons???
JB