Do any of the learned folk who populate this joint know how long it takes Adelaide Fire to get a page out? ie from the moment someone calls 000, to the pager dropping?
(I'm not interested in comparing it to the old SOC, or knocking Adelaide Fire, just a time frame please!)
A local industrial joint wants to do an exercise and time how long it takes to get a crew to their facility. Their idea was to call 000, hit to stop watch and wait for us to rock up.
Nice though it is to inject a bit of reality to training, I'm pretty sure that'd be unappreciated by a whole lot of people. Mainly me.
So, if someone could kindly tell me how long it could take from them calling, to my pager dancing across the desk, I'd be grateful.
From previous experience between 1 to 2 minutes on average for a fire.
Depends how busy the 000 system is at the time etc.
1 to 2 minutes although I have heard a request for CFS on the scanner and almost 10 minutes delay before they dropped :?
I'd agree with about 2 minutes from recent experience....
Was in the station when the alerts phone rang, was able to get the details, get my gear, open both doors and get both appliances fired up ready to go by the time the pager went off.
It also depends on the commcen operator. Some can get them fired off in under a minute, others take a little longer.
Last week was listening to a scanner...heard someone call for our brigade...i had time to shut down the computer, walk out the door, start the car, drive 100m b4 it dropped. found 2 others there just as i arrived at station so early for the same exact reason of listening to scanner.
Called in a smoke sighting a week or so ago. Took nearly 5 mins to explain the location to the comm cen operator and then in the end their was no brigades paged until it was called in by another agency 45mins later!
Where the break down was i have no idea but for filtered sake!
The break down would have been no local people on the end of the fire phone....I called in a MVA few weeks ago up in region 3...In the past I have been put by 000 direct to the local brigade but this time it went to adelaide fire,I gave detail's and a grid ref and map number but the poor com operator could not bring it up on his data base.. So in the end I said page xyz brigade and tell them to head west and i will meet them.....Lucky they know my litle red car up that way... I have in the past called in a job to my own house and while giving job details the pagers went off so it was a min if that.....
Built in phone GPS's should be used by 000 computers to pin point caller location ;)
how about that?!
Having vented my spleen earlier, I guess its probably not my place to talk, but it seems to vary wildy the ability from shift to shift, person to person in MFS comms. You can't tell me its not possible to page someone, even if the details aren't brilliant. Besides, I thought the procedure was to ring the Alerts if you weren't able to work it out or the details aren't in the database ? Am I wrong ?
Quote from: littlejohn on December 17, 2007, 07:33:48 PM
Do any of the learned folk who populate this joint know how long it takes Adelaide Fire to get a page out? ie from the moment someone calls 000, to the pager dropping?
(I'm not interested in comparing it to the old SOC, or knocking Adelaide Fire, just a time frame please!)
How long is a piece of string ?
If you can give the Comms Bod specific info in the right sequence, including UBD ref, maybe a minute or two from dialling to beeping.
Vague location or other info will result in a longer time to get out an accurate response page. Then it will depend upon the geographic knowledge of the Comms Bod, their skill at questioning, & their care factor at the time of the call.
Looking at recent stats, I would say call-taking is averaging 6 minutes per call to record all of the details when SCC is busy. This is getting specific details of the tasking, explain/argue that volunteers cannot attend within 5 minutes to storm damage task due to multi-taskings and life threats have priority.
Then add a minute or two to send the pager message if automatic.
If you have a person who has a heavy accent, is distressed, does not know the area, etc, etc then the call-taking can be longer.
If the person can give specific details & is calm, then 2 to 4 minutes for call taking.
Quote from: Zippy on December 18, 2007, 08:08:58 AM
Last week was listening to a scanner...heard someone call for our brigade...i had time to shut down the computer, walk out the door, start the car, drive 100m b4 it dropped. found 2 others there just as i arrived at station so early for the same exact reason of listening to scanner.
Thats the only way to do it :-D