GRN paging outages

[mengcfs]

Hi all,
When there is a paging outage in your area does your Brigade/Group get notified.

We have had several in our group but our Brigade hasn't been notified - Obviously someone did tho, maybe Region?

16:04:05 13-08-06 SHQ: GRN PAGING SERVICE OUTAGE: 14/08/06, BETWEEN 1130 AND 1200, SITE AFFECTED PEAKE, AREA AFFECTED COORONG & MALLEE GROUPS > 13/08/2006 16:03:54

16:04:50 13-08-06 SHQ: GRN PAGING SERVICE OUTAGE: 14/08/06, BETWEEN 1400 AND 1430, SITE AFFECTED VINCENT, AREA AFFECTED COORONG, MALLEE & SWANPORT GROUPS > 13/08/2006 16:04:40

[corecutters]

Check the fax machine at the Station, or at the regional HQ...

[CaptCom]

RO usually rings and notifies if we have an outage..has happened a couple of times already..

[mengcfs]

Nothing at the Station to indicate outages and prehaps i live in a different world but shouldn't the Region be contacting Brigades/Groups -not the other way 'round!

[rescue5271]

Did you chechk the other fax??? the one with the tin cans.

[mengcfs]

Gee, you have a good memory Blinky

[corecutters]

When I said check the fax I meant that region should fax a report through advising you of outages, page the GDO, who should advise the captain, who should check the report, and possibly arrange with the GO what ever plans need to be implemented..

My guess is its a - " She'll be right " type scenario...


In a perfect world hey..

[medevac]

state send the information via pager to regional duty officer - it is then up to that officer whether they notify groups/brigades or not

[Toast]

When I said check the fax I meant that region should fax a report through advising you of outages, page the GDO, who should advise the captain, who should check the report, and possibly arrange with the GO what ever plans need to be implemented..

My guess is its a - " She'll be right " type scenario...


In a perfect world hey..

According to our group comms, its not a huge issue as areas are covered by multiple paging sites. Its not noticable at a brigade level.

[Darius]

According to our group comms, its not a huge issue as areas are covered by multiple paging sites. Its not noticable at a brigade level.

that's correct for Lofty group but not the same for all groups.  Medevac is right that the RDO is notified by page then it seems to be up to them what happens next.  Sometimes they notify the GDO/GO (seems to be by phone not pager) but usually not (in R1 at least).

Toast, your group comms would like to be notified of all paging/voice outages and has mentioned it to R1 and SHQ but so far gets more info from unofficial channels than official ones.

[bajdas]

Do brigades have SOP's for a paging outage ? If your Brigade was notified of a paging outage, what does your Brigade do to maintain emergency response times.

I would assume the Captain would monitor the GRN talkgroup and then contact members via telephone. Or do some people sit in the Brigade shed.

Genuine curiousity.

[mengcfs]

Different Brigades have different contingency plans. Captain may monitor GRN, crew may be on standby at station, an ALERTS conference call can be made to all members via SOCC or Brigades that have a siren can use that once notification is received. Many methods - whatever works best for your Brigade

[CaptCom]

If the pages are out...we use the mobile..as long as we know that they are down..RO have been very good at notifying us..

[medevac]

a point to note; a GRN outage doesnt necessarily mean the GRN wont work at all... a planned outage will only ever knock out one service at a time (voice, paging or data), where as an unplanned one could mean the tower is completely rooted and could spell bigger problems... so if one is down the other should work anyway and therefore contact is still easy to make...

most areas are covered by more than one GRN site, however country areas may only have one.

general groups/regions have there own contingency, involving the use of siren/alerts in place of paging and there own comms plans

[corecutters]

Do brigades have SOP's for a paging outage ? If your Brigade was notified of a paging outage, what does your Brigade do to maintain emergency response times.

I would assume the Captain would monitor the GRN talkgroup and then contact members via telephone. Or do some people sit in the Brigade shed.

Genuine curiousity.

Station.... not shed..

 

[SA Firey]

GRN outages seem pretty regular and Mintabie is constantly coming up low batt etc....How many brigades still have their town sirens?

Recently 10 brigades have lost their sirens due to public complaints so a reliable source tells me.

PUBLIC eh they are the first to say you didnt respond quick enough...er sorry coroner we didnt have a station siren and the pagers were'nt working due to a GRN outage at the time,so we could'nt get anyone to respond to the job!!...DOH 

[backburn]

Just had our siren fixed and had the grey box on the wall fixed    they found the neutral wire connected wrong, so we now will not burn out any more panels.

[mack]

:-oGRN outages seem pretty regular and Mintabie is constantly coming up low batt etc....How many brigades still have their town sirens?

most of the GRN outages you will see being paged out are 'planned', this is usually for servicing/maintanence. a lot less common are the 'unplanned' outages when a site actually goes down...

planned outages are a lot more common during winter, they like to keep as many functioning as possible during the fire season months...

[CaptCom]

I expect that there may even be times that we have an outage and are not even aware of it...ie it goes down for a short time and we are notified but don't notice that it was...

more important that it's working properly during the fire season! 

[backburn]

I saw we had a voice outage for 3hrs the other day on the pager sit but we did not get any information from the Group Officer this was the same time we had 6 cllouts in 4 days

[Gary B]

Some background on GRN outages: GRN voice and paging sites are having their annual maintenance checks and also being upgraded. The State notifies all agencies regarding dates and times and usually works in 15 to 60 mins outage timeframes. However the actual time a site if off line is much less, generally between say 15 to 60 secs.

For paging, adjacent sites can provide coverage and that's why CFS SOP's require brigades to acknowledge the pager response message withinn 6 minutes for SHQ messages, 4 minutes for SAMFS messages.

All planned outages are outside the Fire Danger Season.

These outages are opportunities to for CFS Groups/Brigades to review and practice contingency plans.

There will be more information regarding GRN outages shortly and this will be communicated to brigades/groups via CFS Regional HQ.

Kind Regards,

Gary Bau

[mengcfs]

Thanks Gary.