Don't like the idea of your neighbors rudely snooping on the wireless signal you slaved to pay for from the lazy comfort of their living room? It's not just about slowing down your connection; while they're downloading Mad Men via bittorrent, you could be on the hook for their actions.
Wireless security and encryption systems are fraught with problems and insecurity, and other methods to restrict your signal to a small area are cumbersome at best.
Enter a new solution: Anti-Wi-Fi paint.
The idea is simple: Use a special paint on walls where you don't want wireless to pass through (say the exterior of your house). The secret is mixing aluminum-iron oxide particles in with the paint. The metal particles resonate at the same frequency as Wi-Fi and other radio waves, so signals can't pass through the thin layer of pigment. Outsiders would simply be unable to access your wireless network, just as you, inside the house, won't be able to interlope on anything beamed on the outside.
Developed by the University of Tokyo, the paint is said to be the first that can block radio frequency in higher spectra where Wi-Fi and other higher-bandwidth communications occur rather than just low-frequency wireless like FM radio. Most Wi-Fi technologies operate at 2.4GHz; the Tokyo paint can reportedly block frequencies all the way up to 100GHz, with a 200GHz-blocking paint now in the works.
The paint isn't just of interest to those concerned about wireless leaking out of the building. Movie theaters have long been interested in finding a legal way to keep cell phones silent during screenings. Electronic jammers that actively block wireless signals are illegal, but passive materials that prevent wireless signals from getting through are not. Since the wireless-blocking paint can also block the lower-frequency signals that cell phones use, addled mobile junkies would have no outlet for reaching the outside world.
Some aren't convinced that anti-Wi-Fi paint makes a lot of sense for a secure situation, though. Says one engineer, "Surely the thought of having to redecorate a building in order to provide Wi-Fi security is more costly and complex than the security functionality available in even the cheapest of Wi-Fi access points..."
Good point.
 

There's a pretty neat video circulating Youtube that has some vintage shots of some old FDNY operations. For those interested in the communications aspect, there's some coverage of the Brooklyn Dispatch Office that shows the box alarm system in operation. Surf to:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQLlJVagmOs

Sept. 29) -- From baby deliveries to unexpected deaths, Mike Bowes, a 911 dispatcher from Quincy, Massachusetts, has handled a wide range of emergency calls.
But Monday night, the 44-year-old received an unexpected call from his neighbor: His own house was on fire.
The 911 call came in about 10:45 p.m. Monday, a little more than an hour before Mike Bowes' shift ended.
My neighbor's house just blew up, the caller said.
"What's the address?" Mike Bowes asked patiently, just as he did with every emergency call for the past 11 years with the Quincy Police Department.
The caller frantically relayed the address, Bowes' home address for 20 years.
"It was shocking," Mike Bowes said. "I thought she was kidding. It's a long shot. I mean, what's the chances it will be your house?"
Out of 90,000 people who reside in Quincy, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston, Mike Bowes' was the home in flames, and he had answered the emergency call.
Thoughts raced through his mind: Are my parents OK? Are the neighbors safe? What about my stuff?
Following procedure, Mike Bowes transferred the call to the fire department. Soon, dozens of calls about the fire from other neighbors began to pour into the control room.
One of the callers was his mother, Elizabeth Bowes, 68. She and her husband, Donald Bowes, 72, had escaped unharmed.
About 10:45 p.m., Elizabeth Bowes was reading a novel in the kitchen when she heard the explosion and saw flames shoot through the kitchen window. She ran to wake her husband in a first-floor bedroom.
There was also a landlord living in upstairs. Firefighters arrived within minutes and helped her to safety.
Within five minutes of receiving the call, police escorted Mike Bowes to his home. He could see the fire light up the dark sky from afar. Anxious neighbors gathered in the park nearby. He was relieved to find his parents together on the sidewalk.
"My parents are alive; my neighbors are alive," he said. "It's an inconvenience, but we'll get through it."
In another coincidence, one of the first firefighters to arrive on scene was Mike Bowes' cousin, Tom Bowes.
Tom Bowes, a firefighter for the past eight years, scrambled into the house to salvage old albums with wedding and baby photos amid the flames.
But everything else -- the clothes, electronics and furniture -- were destroyed.
No one was injured in the fire, and firefighters have yet to determine what caused the blaze. They say it started in the garage, about 15 feet from the home.
Mike Bowes says his job prepared him to deal with the challenging circumstances. Bowes and his family are living in a hotel, and local police officers and firefighters have donated clothes and money.
"A lot of people think dispatchers are strange because I've been joking about what happened," he said. "I say, 'If I'm not laughing, I'll start crying.' This is what I have to do

Alleged bad advice leads to fire lawsuit for emergency agency
By JESSIE STENSLAND
Whidbey News Times Assistant editor
Sep 11 2009, 2:08 PM · UPDATED
An Oak Harbor man filed a lawsuit against Island County’s emergency dispatch center, claiming that a dispatcher’s bad advice two years ago led to a serious injury.
Gregory Cunningham’s attorney, Deborah Truitt of Oak Harbor, filed the complaint against Island County Emergency Services Communication Center, commonly known as ICOM, on Aug. 24. The complaint asks for an unspecific amount of damages for medical costs, pain and suffering, and economic loss.
The complaint states that Cunningham was cooking at his home on Sept. 29, 2007, when a grease fire started. He called 911 for help and the ICOM operator told him the best thing to do was to put flour on the grease fire, the complaint states.
Cunningham threw flour on the fire and there was an explosion, the complaint claims. He suffered severe burns to his hand.
Tom Shaughnessy, director of ICOM, said the complaint was turned over to the insurance company. He couldn’t comment on specifics of the ongoing litigation.
Battalion Chief Ray Merrill with the Oak Harbor Fire Department confirmed that the stovetop fire occurred on Elwha Street. He said the fire did not spread beyond the cooking utensil.
Merrill said that throwing flour on a grease fire could cause on explosion. He said flour, sugar and water should not be used to extinguish a grease fire. Even using baking soda or a fire extinguisher is a bad idea, he said, because it could spread the fire.
“The best thing, if you can, is to take the pan off the stove and place a lid on it to smother the fire,” he said.
 

AT&T outage reveals weaknesses in emergency communications
 
Joshua Sebold
Staff Writer
8/26/2009

Problems with telephone and Internet service from Quincy to Portola disrupted normal operations of everything from gas stations to
emergency service communications Sunday, Aug. 16.
“On a small scale we were shown how unorganized and how unprepared we are at certain times,” Supervisor Robert Meacher commented.



Plumas County Sheriff’s Department Deputy Mike Grant estimated the phone problems began around 8:45 a.m. and were mostly resolved by 2:30 p.m.

There were many problems caused by the loss of service as some gas pumps refused to take credit cards, at least one ATM machine wouldn’t give out money, some supermarkets limited the amount of cash back, “contactless” credit cards that activate by being near a sensor didn’t work in some places and food stamp cards were rejected in some instances.

All of these problems were attributed to services that require a machine to get verification from an outside source.

If someone walks into a supermarket, pays with a debit card and asks for cash back, some services require that information be sent over the phone lines to make sure that the person actually has enough money in his account to make that withdrawal.

Different companies, chains and businesses have a myriad of policies and protocols for how to address a situation when that information can’t be verified.

In this incident one store limited the amount of cash back to $40, while other establishments simply didn’t want to take the risk of giving out money they weren’t sure the customer had.

Businesses that used satellite phones were exempt from these problems, which seemed to be centered primarily on landlines, cell phones and Internet lines run by AT&T.

One AT&T representative unofficially referred to the incident as a “catastrophic repeater outage.” Repeaters are essentially devices that receive some form of signal and repeat it to another receiver.

They are used for many reasons, for example, to get radio messages past obstructions like hills by putting a repeater on top of the hill so a signal goes up to the hill and then down to the destination on the other side.

Gina Pernetti of AT&T Corporate Communications for the West Region gave the official response in an e-mail.

She simply commented that the problem was caused by “a power-related issue.” Pernetti explained cell phones were affected because “all cell-phone calls, at some point, are routed through landlines.”

When asked what areas were affected, she responded, “Roughly, southern Plumas County—Portola, Loyalton, Blairsden, Sierraville, Quincy numbers.”

Emergency services
Although all of the effects of the service outage listed above were certainly inconveniencing and, given the right circumstances, could have led to major problems or dangers for families living day to day, the most frightening part of the incident was its drastic impact on the communications of Plumas first responders and other emergency service providers.

Deputy Grant, the resident PCSO communications expert, explained the situation.

He began by saying the county’s new “reverse 911” call system can’t function without landline phone service.

Grant added that a third of the PCSO’s radio capability was compromised by the outage.

The deputy pointed out dispatch phones also were out: dispatchers could not receive 911 calls for about 45 minutes.

During that time dispatchers were using a non-AT&T cell phone to call hospitals and fire stations to get people with non-AT&T cell phones to stand by there, creating an ad hoc communication system.

Dispatchers also called Sierra County, which takes over dispatching duties for Plumas when issues like these arise.

Grant said he couldn’t tell if Sierra County lost phone service simultaneously or shortly after Plumas, but in any event the dispatch center in that county quickly notified Nevada County that it would have to cover both Plumas and Sierra counties.

He also said that residents in the Chester and Greenville area had working phones, but got a busy signal when calling 911 for part of the outage because there was essentially nowhere for their call to go with dispatch phones out of service in Quincy.

This actually put them at a disadvantage compared to people in Quincy and Portola who had non-A&T cell phones as they could call 911 and their calls would be routed to another dispatch center.

People in Chester and Greenville possibly had a larger problem in terms of reaching emergency services and were probably less likely to know that there was even an issue with communications as their phones were working fine.

Meanwhile, a sergeant and dispatchers activated a satellite phone that allowed them to speak to other dispatch centers and receive calls from them as well.

At 11:30 a.m., a second backup communication system was assembling in Portola, as Plumas Amateur Radio Club and Amateur Radio Emergency Service members Dennis Dickinson and his father, Roy Dickinson, were setting up ham radio stations in the Eastern Plumas District Hospital parking lot and making connections with amateur radio operators in Quincy and Reno, Nev.

The duo notified local ARES and Radio Amateur Coordinated Emergency Services members in both areas of the service outage using radio repeaters on Mount Hough and Mount Rose.

They said that if the outage had gone on, other operators would have moved their equipment to strategic locations to assist emergency services in communicating.

Summing up the incident, Grant said he would like to get secondary communications fully prepared so the 45-minute set-up time would be shorter in the future.

He added that this was only the second time a communication outage of this magnitude had hit Plumas County in recent memory.

Grant said adding redundancy to the emergency services communication system occurred as a result of the last incident, which he thought would be enough to avoid it happening again.

He said it was hard to predict the next way something could go wrong until there was an actual incident like this one.

He also said many of the problems, such as Chester residents getting a busy signal, were hard to envision fixes for when the corporation that owns the infrastructure that malfunctioned was unwilling to share more information about what went wrong.


 

As many readers of the Secret List know, the Atlanta 9-1-1 Center has come under fire for alleged delays in answering and dispatching fire calls.  Earlier this week they fired their director. While I don't know either the gentlemen or his capabilities, I do know that staffing there has been a problem. Sources tell me that while they were 25 or more dispatchers below authorized strength, a mandatory citywide furlough went in place, effectively reducing the number on-duty by another 10%. Take away some of your first alarm staffing and you're going to have lives and property lost. Take away some of your 9-1-1 staff and you're going to have ringing phones, hurried calls, and delayed dispatches. The article follows.

Barry

Atlanta fires 911 chief

 
By Christian Boone
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
 
8:09 p.m. Wednesday, August 26, 2009
 
Miles Butler, the embattled director of Atlanta’s 911 Center, was fired Wednesday.
 
In a tersely worded press release, Atlanta Police Chief Richard Pennington announced the firing but did not offer a reason for it. He declined to comment further.
 
“[Butler]’s always been a problem as far as I’m concerned,” said Atlanta City Councilman C.T. Martin. “The job was bigger than he was able to handle.”
 
Butler did not respond to calls seeking comment.
 
His 19-month tenure was marked by lengthy delays in dealing with emergency calls.
 
In January, a house fire in Grant Park burned for more than 20 minutes after neighbors began calling 911 and before firefighters arrived. Wilford Reed was trying to douse the blaze with a garden hose, but his home of 40 years — located less than a mile from the nearest fire station — was gutted.
 
“Miles Butler was fired? Good,” said Reed when reached Wednesday. He said the 911 director never apologized to him for the city’s tardy response to his fire.
 
Butler initially blamed callers to the 911 Center, saying they reported the wrong address. He later clarified his response when audiotapes proved otherwise.
 
He said retraining was necessary for the operator in question, acknowledging to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, “For us, this has been a learning experience.”
 
“[Butler] admitted they were negligent,” said attorney Terry Jackson, who represents Wilford Reed. “He admitted they were negligent in the training, hiring and supervising of people in the 911 Center. They were understaffed and overworked, and that’s coming from the director.”
 
Reed petitioned the city in June to compensate him for the loss of his house and furnishings. The city told his attorney it is considering the request.
 
In May, a fire that interrupted a children’s birthday party in West End burned for nearly 17 minutes before firefighters were dispatched. City officials blamed the delay on a heavy call volume and staff shortages at the 911 Center.
 
Butler said in May that Atlanta answered 88,075 calls to 911 the previous month in 12 seconds, on average, but at the time would not provide documentation verifying his statement.
 
Martin said complaints about the 911 Center continued through the summer.
 
“We get them all the time,” he said.
 
A 2008 city audit, assessing the reliability of data in the computer-aided dispatch database, found that the center’s problems predated Butler’s tenure.
 
“We were unable to conclude whether the data is reliable because the contractor responsible for maintaining the system did not provide system documentation or consistent answers,” according to a letter prepared by city auditors. “We also identified problems with missing fields, the logic used to create reports for the department, and the department’s reliance on the contractor for system information.”
 
Butler was paid an annual salary of $86,921. He’s being replaced on an interim basis by Brenda Ross, a 27-year veteran of the Atlanta Police Department and a commander in the city’s 911 Center.
 

Providence Fire Department switching to statewide radio system
01:00 AM EDT on Tuesday, August 25, 2009
By Gregory Smith

Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — At 8 a.m. Tuesday, the Fire Department will switch over for good to the 800 MHz radio frequency. That means it will be using a new digital microwave communications system that promises to keep first responders in close contact throughout any local, regional or statewide emergency.
Although the department has been testing the digital system for months and officials are confident of success, the city Department of Communications will keep its current VHF system running as a backup until about mid-September –– just in case.
Until the construction of the digital system, the Police Department relied on an ultra-high-frequency, or UHF, system and the Fire Department on a very high-frequency, or VHF, system. Both were dependent on leased telephone lines. The police went wireless and digital in July 2008.
The police had a small taste of the improvement in late winter, recalled William Trinque, city director of communications, when a glitch in the new system caused the police to lose communications for a few minutes. To maintain communication, they were able to take advantage of the flexibility and redundancy of the new setup by quickly switching over to the statewide digital network.
“It worked perfect,” Trinque said.
The problem turned out to be a neglected battery in a microwave tower, according to Joseph McGarry, deputy director of communications. When the backup battery ran out of energy, the signal from the tower was interrupted. The problem has been corrected.
Every frontline and reserve fire truck and rescue truck has a digital mobile radio, with a portable radio available at each manned position on a truck. In addition, according to McGarry, each fire truck has a repeater, which is a piece of equipment that boosts the signal to better penetrate buildings.
The city Department of Public Works is tied into the digital system, and ultimately the Parks Department and Water Supply Board will be, too.
One of the steps taken to prevent a repeat of the “December Debacle” was to give the School Department a digital radio for officials to keep an open line to First Student, the school bus contractor, according to Trinque.
The December Debacle occurred on Dec. 13, 2007, when several circumstances, including an underestimated snowstorm and inattention by key officials, combined to gridlock traffic in and around the city. Young children were stranded on school buses until late at night.
During the snowstorm, school officials complained, they lost touch with First Student when the company’s phone lines became clogged. The communications breakdown contributed to the debacle, an investigatory committee concluded.
One of the advantages of the digital system on the 800 MHz frequency is its statewide reach — much broader than the antiquated intercity radio. As a test, Trinque said, he took a portable radio with him on a fishing trip to Block Island and was able to easily call McGarry in Providence with crystal clear results.
If there is more than one emergency at the same time, first responders are supposed to be able to easily manage by using the multiple “talk groups” of the digital system. The intercity radio had only one channel, so there was a bottleneck.
“One of the nice features of this system,” McGarry said, “is that it is really three independent [regional] systems.” If any one part fails, communication can be maintained by using the other parts across the state.
Although state agencies and all municipalities have the necessary digital equipment in hand, there are important communication and training protocols to be written and imparted to everyone concerned, McGarry pointed out.
There will be “a hailing channel for everybody,” but before meaningful communication can occur, he said, all must agree on the language and terminology and on the standard operating procedures, or SOPs, to be used
 

Motorola Names R. David Paulison, Former FEMA Head, to Support Funding Programs and Fire Service “Voice of Customer” Research Knowledge of government funding process and emergency response issues benefits customers seeking fire grants


August 27, 2009

 

SCHAUMBURG, ILL.  – August 27, 2009 – Motorola Inc. (NYSE: MOT) has named Robert David Paulison, former administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA),  to consult and support the company’s Government and Enterprise Funding Programs as customers and partners seek funds from the Assistance to Firefighters Grant Act, also known as the AFG program.

“A major source of financial support for many of our customers is federal funding aimed at improving the safety and effectiveness of firefighters,” said Rick Neal, Motorola vice president, strategy and business development, Enterprise Mobility Solutions. “Motorola is committed to working with our customers and partners as they seek grant funding  to operate more efficiently and keep their personnel safe. In addition, we are looking forward to collaborating with Paulison and his unique understanding of the fire service and emergency management.”

Paulison has more than 30 years of emergency management and emergency service experience working with local, state and federal policies. Most recently, he served as the U.S. Senate-confirmed FEMA administrator, assuming the role after Hurricane Katrina. He developed an effective national response to disasters through three hurricane seasons, the California wildfires and the 2008

Midwest floods. Prior to his role as administrator of FEMA, Paulison served as the administrator of the U.S. Fire Administration from 2001 to 2005, and fire chief for Miami-Dade Fire and Rescue Department in Miami from 1992 to 2001 after moving up the ranks from firefighter in 1971.  “I look forward to working with our customers and partners during this critical time to meet the needs of the fire service and other emergency management agencies,” said Paulison, Motorola consultant for the Government and Enterprise Funding and Voice of the Customer programs. “As our customers struggle to deal with shrinking budgets, we plan to help them find resources through federal grant programs to afford end-to-end communications solutions that help them protect their personnel and respond more effectively during any emergency.”

For multimedia assets from FRI, visit FRI 2009 Press Kit. Also follow us on Facebook and Twitter. 

Wouldn't it be great to have a radio that supports all bands used by first responders in a given area?

The DHS is currently working toward that goal -- lending a hand in developing what would become the first multi-band radio designed specifically for first responders. In order to complete its research, responders from various agencies across the U.S. are being involved in the process.

Last month, the department's Science and Technology Directorate announced the selection of 14 agencies for the final phase of its multi-band radio project.

Each agency will take part in the pilot program for a minimum of 30 days beginning this fall.

"We have been going out to people who are on the front line and ask them what they need to make their jobs better and interoperable communications always comes up," DHS S&T spokesman John Verrico said.

"The problem is there are only so many frequency bands available. As the bands get full, we open new ones. We've got a bunch of different frequencies; some analog, some digital. The various agencies responding can't necessarily speak each other."

In February at the International Wireless Communications Expo in Las Vegas, the project was announced, along with the unveiling of the radio that would be tested -- the Liberty radio by the Clarksburg, Md.-based Thales Group.

DHS also awarded the company a grant to further develop the radio, which Thales spokeswoman Sheila Gindes said was previously entirely privately funded.

"We wanted this thing to be the same size and weight as the current radio," Verrico said. "We didn't want it to cost more than what is out there currently on the high end. It also had to be able to communicate in multiple frequencies."

He said other companies that were developing multi band radios were considered, but that the Liberty was the closest to what it needed. The radio covers analog and digital signals and supports all bands used by public safety including 135-174 MHz, 380-520 MHz, 700 MHz and 800 MHz.

According to Gindes, the Liberty is the first multi-band radio covering the entire public safety sector to receive FCC approval.

The company is currently taking orders for the device, but production is being limited to only the pilot program. Commercial production is set to begin early next year.

Since the partnership was announced, the radio has been tested at several events including the Presidential Inauguration, Kentucky Derby and the 2009 Super Bowl in Tampa, Fla.

Verrico said that while at the Super Bowl, he observed the need firsthand for a multi-band radio at large-scale events where various agencies are involved. He said he saw some responders carrying as many as eight radios at one time.

"Now we're getting into focusing on less event-specific usage and more on everyday usage," he said. "There are various organizations at different altitudes and different climates so we will get a really good idea about how these things work when they are really put to use."

Verrico said that while a multi-band radios will improve emergency communications as a whole, the goal isn't to completely overall the current system.

"I don't see any way to replace the infrastructure already out there," he said.

He also noted that the radios wouldn't be given to every first responder, but to only those in command.

"We're very excited to get to this point. This is a game changer and will really make a difference for responders in the field."

The 14 lead organizations in the pilot are:

• 2010 Olympic Security Committee (Blaine, Wash., and Vancouver, B.C. Canada)
• Amtrak (Northeast Corridor)
• Boise Fire Department (Boise, Idaho)
• Canadian Interoperability Technology Interest Group (Ottawa, ON Canada)
• Customs and Border Patrol (Detroit)
• Federal Emergency Management Agency (Multiple Locations)
• Hawaii State Civil Defense (Honolulu)
• Interagency Communication Interoperability System (Los Angeles County, Calif.)
• Michigan Emergency Medical Services (Lower Peninsula Areas)
• Murray State University (Southwest Kentucky)
• Phoenix Police Department and Arizona Department of Emergency Management (Greater Phoenix and Yuma County)
• Texas National Guard (Austin, Texas)
• U.S. Marshals Service (Northeast Region)
• Washington Metro Area Transit Authority Transit Police (District of Columbia)

A man charged with stealing a generator that was used to keep a 911 system operating during the January ice storm has been sentenced to eight years in prison.

Forty-two-year-old Kenny Napier of Morrow told a Washington County jury Tuesday he was sorry. His wife and 18-year-old son, who has been diagnosed with leukemia, asked jurors to be lenient.

Napier was sentenced on a batch of charges, including interfering with emergency communications.

Jurors were told that Napier would be eligible for release after serving one-sixth of his sentence.

Prosecutor John Threet says he feels sympathy for Napier's family, but he says Napier knew the generator was used to keep the 911 system running in an emergency.

In 1999, the city of Phoenix decided that it needed to replace its legacy radio system, which was using four-decades-old technology and was fraught with overloaded frequencies. The city also wanted a state-of-the-art system robust enough to accommodate police, fire, public works and other agencies, all of which were operating their own systems. The city eventually purchased a 700/800 MHz trunked, simulcast system from Motorola that offers 117 frequencies and covers 2,000 square miles. Leif Anderson, deputy chief of the Phoenix Fire Department, speaking yesterday at the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials annual conference, described it as a “system on steroids.”

“We got a bad-ass radio system,” he said.

Nevertheless, the law of unintended consequences soon kicked in, as the fire department discovered that the trunked system wasn’t well suited for communications in the “hazard zone,” Anderson said.

“Trunked radio systems are complex systems specifically set up and designed to maximize capacity, and to let a [large number of] users to talk over a very big area” he said. “The mismatch here is that those aren’t the requirements of the hazard zone.”

The great fear was that a trunked system would be unreliable on the fireground, i.e., hazard zone, in certain situations, which is a big problem because firefighters need communications that are simple, reliable and predictable, according to Anderson.

“If you can’t talk to the tower, or the tower can’t talk to you, you can’t talk to anybody,” he said. “We established a long time ago that that is an unacceptable situation. That’s a mayday situation. … It’s bred into us — if you lose the ability to communicate, you have to grab your partner and get out.”

So, the fire department went back to its VHF analog simplex system for fireground communications. Each firefighter is equipped with an analog radio, while officers carry both an analog radio, which they use to communicate with firefighters in the hazard zone, and a digital trunked radio that they use to communicate outside the hazard zone.

Of course, that is hardly an ideal situation, so the department, working with the Phoenix Information Services Department, has been experimenting with ways for the analog and digital systems to communicate with each other. The most promising to date involves the use of digital vehicle repeaters that would convert analog transmissions to digital, and vice versa. “We looked at this first because we thought it would be the most cost-effective and viable approach,” Anderson said.

It also turned out to be the most effective. Tests were conducted that involved 11 buildings — including high-rises, big box structures and small box structures, all of which typically present a challenging communications environment — and firefighters who were put into scenarios they would face during an actual incident. The results were impressive: 1,350 successful transmissions were executed, with just 32 failures. Of those failures, 24 involved firefighters who were in an elevator.

“When you compare [all of the approaches], this was the most successful,” Anderson said, adding that the fire department is now considering the placement of DVRs in every fire and EMS vehicle.

Even if that happens, more challenges are sure to pop up, Anderson said.

“This is a moving target,” he said. “As we’re sitting here talking, things are changing — trees are growing, buildings are being built and [the population is growing]. The amount of land that has been annexed in the area we serve over the last seven years is incredible. So we have to continuously reassess what our requirements are and what our options are.”

But the department also has to guard against paralysis by analysis, Anderson said.

“It’s like when you’re shopping for a car. When you need a car you have to buy one — you can’t keep shopping forever.”

For those of you interested in the challenges of wireless 9-1-1 service (and everyone should be since a majority of 9-1-1 calls in most jurisdictions come from cell phones), I offer you the following link to an excellent story on MSNBC.com:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31786185/ns/technology_and_science-wireless

The reporter accurately details the variety of issues that dispatchers deal with on an daily basis, and it's an informative read.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate today announced the 14 lead organizations for the upcoming pilot phase of testing and evaluation (T&E) for the Multi-Band Radio project. The pilots comprise the final phase of a three-part T&E process that includes laboratory testing, short-term demonstrations, and pilot projects.

In 2008, the DHS Science and Technology Directorate awarded a contract to demonstrate a multi-band radio that enables emergency responders—police, firefighters, emergency medical personnel and others—to communicate with partner agencies, regardless of the radio band on which they operate.  Currently, radios only operate within a specific frequency band; subsequently, responders are often unable to communicate with other agencies and support units that operate in different radio frequencies.  Comparable in size and weight to existing portable radios with similar features, multi-band radio would provide users with much-improved incident communications capabilities.

The pilot phase provides a unique opportunity for agencies to access the latest technology and implement it in their daily operations. Feedback from local, state, and federal participants during the first two phases was incorporated into a production-ready multi-band radio to be used for this pilot. 

The 14 lead organizations in the pilot are:

• 2010 Olympic Security Committee (Blaine, Wash., and Vancouver, B.C. Canada)
  
• Amtrak (Northeast Corridor)
  
• Boise Fire Department (Boise, Idaho)
  
• Canadian Interoperability Technology Interest Group (Ottawa, ON Canada)
  
• Customs and Border Patrol (Detroit)
  
• Federal Emergency Management Agency (Multiple Locations)
  
• Hawaii State Civil Defense (Honolulu)
  
• Interagency Communication Interoperability System (Los Angeles County, Calif.)
  
• Michigan Emergency Medical Services (Lower Peninsula Areas)
  
• Murray State University (Southwest Kentucky)
  
• Phoenix Police Department and Arizona Department of Emergency Management Greater Phoenix and Yuma County)
  
• Texas National Guard (Austin, Texas)
  
• U.S. Marshals Service (Northeast Region)
  
• Washington Metro Area Transit Authority Transit Police (District of Columbia)
  

Each agency will conduct a minimum 30-day pilot in fall 2009. The pilots are designed to focus on the capabilities and effectiveness of the technology, with users primarily in a command-and-control role or involved in special operations with multiple entities. The agencies and sites were chosen to represent a broad range of communication environments. Factors such as operating bands, partner agencies and disciplines, interoperable conditions, and geographic landscapes were considered when selecting pilot sites. 

Results will be documented at the conclusion of the test, and all findings and lessons learned will be published in a comprehensive report that is expected to be posted on the SAFECOM program Web site, www.safecomprogram.gov, in early 2010.  The report will provide details to manufacturers about the needs of the response community and assist officials in making informed radio purchasing decisions in the future. 

Alarm monitoring companies typically call a 911 operator to report an incident when an alarm sounds, which can result in errors, delays and possibly life-threatening circumstances.

But that doesn't happen in Richmond, Va., which now automates the process, eliminating phone calls, saving time and possibly lives. The automation interface could eliminate more than 32 million incoming 911 phone calls for assistance from alarm-monitoring companies.

Richmond, in partnership with solution provider Intergraph, went live in April after a two-year pilot that displayed the viability of the software interface and resulted in an American National Standards Institute standard recognized by the Association of Public-Safety Officials International.

"The new exchange standard simply replaces that traditional call that alarm companies place to 911 centers in order to notify them of an alarm event," said Bill Hobgood, public safety team project manager of the Richmond Department of Information Technology. "If you look at just the initial delivery of the new alarm event by telephone and using this standard nationwide we predict across all the 6,500 public safety answering points [PSAPs] if they were to take advantage of the standard, we could eliminate 32 million telephone calls to 911 every year."

Hobgood said follow-up calls or update messages from the alarm-monitoring companies that are made after the initial 911 call could also be eliminated with the new XML-based software standard. That's 40 million to 60 million calls eliminated.

The alarm data is transmitted electronically and processed by the 911 center's computer aided dispatch system as a call-for-service that appears immediately in the operator's dispatch queue ready to be assigned to first responders. The result is a time savings of two to three minutes per call, maybe more.

"During a hurricane situation I've heard some alarm companies complain that they've tried to call the PSAP and they pick up the phone and tell the alarm company operator to hold on, and eight to 10 minutes later get back on the line to get the information," Hobgood said.

Another benefit of the standard is the elimination of mistakes that occur regularly with the phone calls.

"You might have a mix of accents or somebody might have a low-volume voice or a lot of noise in the background," Hobgood said. "A lot of mistakes happen, like Fourth Street or Fourth Avenue. Most are caught but it's the mistakes that aren't caught that turn into tragedies like somebody entered the wrong alarm type, maybe a burglary instead of a fire, and the wrong responders get sent."

Those misunderstandings are prevented with the automatic exchange of information. The alarm company software will send a request for an address validation to ensure that the street where the alarm went off matches with the PSAP's database.

Hobgood said there are about seven companies that write software for alarm companies and the alarm companies must request that the standard be written into it. "The neat thing about having a standard is anybody who has to write an interface only has to write it one time."

This from STATter911:

Starting late Thursday morning and lasting through the 8:00 PM hour, Prince George's County Fire/EMS Department's Channel 1 was tied up by someone using a fire department radio. Major Derrick Lea confirms the identifier from the radio indicates it was stolen. Lea says it is on the list of about eight stolen radios that is kept by the county's 911 center. He could not say when it had been taken or from where.

A man's voice has been heard at various times over the nine hour period. The man sang, used profane language and at times asked for a reward for finding the radio. He said he wanted $250 for the radio's return. At one point he was heard yelling "man down, man down".

In another transmission the man with the stolen radio said he was on Southern Avenue at Brandywine Street. The two streets are along the Southeast Washington border with Prince George's County, but do not intersect.

Major Lea said emergency calls were still being dispatched on the channel. The dispatchers mostly ignored the individual after initial attempts to get the man to turn in the radio.

Major Lea says an investigation is underway. Lea declined to do a television interview over concerns that it would bring undo attention to the incident and provoke copycats.

The department did issue this statement Thursday night:

On the morning of July 9, 2009 at approximately 1100 hours, Public Safety Communications began to experience a disruption to the normal flow of radio traffic. A radio, which was identified as lost, began emitting transmissions that are prohibited by FCC regulations. These infractions in no way hindered the dispatch of Emergency Service calls; however, Public Safety Communications takes these incidents seriously and continues to investigate.

Prince George’s County Fire/EMS Department Chief Eugene Jones expressed his confidence in the ability of the Department to continue operations during this disruption, and he further emphasizes no Emergency Calls will be effected.

While the 911 center can tell which radio is making the transmissions, they are unable to disable it. Prince George's County still uses an analog UHF radio system. The county is in the process of testing a new 700 mhz digital system that will give dispatchers the capability in the future of locking out such a radio.