Communications

I am suggesting this week that you have some communications training for your troops. This can take a couple of different paths and you could maybe generate enough information for a couple of drills out of this week's discussion.

* Take a tour of your local dispatch facility. If you are thoroughly familiar with your own then tour another jurisdiction's facility.

* Familiarize all personnel with what conditions the dispatcher work's under and what the firefighter in the field can do to make the job easier for the dispatcher.

* Ask to hear some recent radio or telephone tapes so that personnel can see how they sound on the radio and how loud voices or reaching over to press the microphone while it is on the dashboard really doesn't make it very easy for you to be heard.

* Ensure that your personnel realize that without the dispatcher no resources get deployed.

* Take the troops to a commercial building like an apartment complex (get permission first) and explain all of the facets of the detection and alarm system.

* Explain the differences between a LOCAL system and a system that is tied into a municipal master box device.

* Explain the main detection panel in the lobby, review the various zones, explain reset procedures for that panel and explain how to disable a particular zone and what policies must be followed if you do that.

* Explain in an apartment situation how the detectors inside the apartment might be LOCAL and the ones in the hallway are tied in. Relay how that would impact a telephone alarm received that said someone could hear an alarm, but you did not receive the box yet. What does that mean?

* In some elderly apartments there is a medical alarm system with lights that should be explained to fire and EMS personnel. You may not even be aware of it's existence.

* Take the troops into a tough all new steel building or basement area and have them try to transmit from a portable radio to the pumper or to dispatch.

* Take your portable radio and go to different parts of your response area and pre determine where the dead spots are and where they might be.

* Teach your troops all about their portable radios, maintenance and other issues that we covered in previous training bulletins.