Stench60

=D>

United Hospital..... Good bye and Good Riddance

Time to put the cesspool back on the tax rolls...

X635,

I had to reply to this one, "...nobody is willing to work together or compromise/standardize, then we are going to go nowhere.”

You astonish me by then attacking the departments that wish to remain on low-band and stating “... cut them off from all county services, including training!" How do you expect people to work with you and effect some form of compromise if that is going to be the prevailing attitude. Now, I will grant that what you wrote may have been in a sarcastic tone, but there are groups and individuals that feel this way and statements like these can only encourage the knuckleheads of the world.

The fact is the system was never set up to be a centralized dispatch center; it just slowly grew into one. It's been a compromise from its' inception.

Do you ever stop to think that departments may have their own valid reasons for maintaining their activities on 46.26 etc.? And when the county does attempt to remedy the situation you demean it by stating that “this new radio system thats not going to apply to day to day operations", Why won't it apply to day to day operations. I would like an explanation for this statement.

With the logic and “solutions" you lay out it's no wonder that the powers that be look askance at any type of change. As for lobbying groups there are plenty, it's easy to spout anonymously/ semi-anonymously on a message board. Go to a County Chiefs meeting if your a chief officer, a County volunteer meeting if your just a member or your local or district meeting if your career to voice your opinion. Let someone publicly hear you instead of a few people on the web-site.

I've read through this and there are a hell of a lot of valid points made by everyone from doing away with ten codes to clarification of the apparatus radio identifiers. Now, just to lay out a couple of my own opinions on the whole matter.

1) Plain english is the way to go for communication purposes, it makes the intent of the message perfectly clear and is also much faster than looking up and sending a coded message and then recieving that message and again having to decode the meaning.

2) There is absolutely no reason for having seperate ladder and tower ladder designations.

3) Will some one finally explain to me why the designation rescue can have such an extreme latitude of meaning?

4) While I personally could care less what radio identifier is used for each piece of equipment, IMHO the shorter and clearer the better. Engine X, Ladder Y and Rescue Z are much easier to understand and say than 24-32-45-1 . For gods sake that sounds like Eli Mannining calling a bootleg left.

5) 46.26, 33.96, 46.14 etc. are not fireground channels, don't use them as such. After going on location, the only radio that should still be communicating on these channels is the Incident commander.

6) I can tell you the new radios are much closer than any of you think and provided that they are used correctly they will solve alot of the problems.

7) This is a real personal burn for me as a long time driver of PCFD Engine 1 ( county radio identifier Eng. 60 ). To all of you who love to spout car xyz or ladder abc to 60, please don't, It get's very confusing and annoying. Annoying enough that I have actually answered these messages a few times asking the individual if they have a message for Engine 60. In the middle of an incident this can be dangerous. Please use your heads.

Well enough for now, thanks for listening.

You don't take into consideration the fact that numerous departments are independently licensed to operate on 46.26 etc. and have the ability to tell the county to go pound salt.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, the problem isn't the radio, it is the operator.

The Ossining Ladder is still in use in PC, The ladder from the PC seagrave is in Wisconsin being rebuilt.

New Rochelle did their own dispatching prior to going to the county.

The Collyer's were two brothers who were a little off in the head and collected newspapers and other various junk. They proceeded to fill their manhattan mansion with this garbage to the point that they were literally moving through tunnels of garbage to move around their home.

To make a long story short, when one brother died after being trapped under the mounds of junk, the other brother who may have been an invalid also died. it took the FDNY several days if not a week to find them due to the condition.

The reason I know this is because as a kid my mother would tell me to clean my room by saying that " it's starting to look like Collyer's Mansion."

"I think it is important to remember the CFR trucks at Westchester County Airport as a viable resource for incidents such as this. I think that they have three rigs if I am not mistaken, one rig I think is a spare/back-up unit. That truck could be sent mutual aid to local Westchester County Departments facing large scale incidents. "

The spare unit is exactly that, a spare unit should one of the front line units go down. If the airport loses on site firefighting capabilities, by FAA regulations they must shut down flight operations.

It's still going strong brother, next convention is in Glen Falls in Upstate NY, June 2005.

Thank the PD's. When the system was setup they're the group that had, and still have, the political muscle to force so many PSAP's. The system was flawed from the moment the police agencies required that they each receive their own 911 calls and not have them go to a central answering point.

Peekskill has a couple of hand drawn pieces ( A parade hose cart and a hand engine) that are amazingly beautiful. It always amazes me to see them coming down the street with the ropes fully manned and the rigs all decked out in their finest. I have a few pictures of Washingtons hose cart, I'll have to figure out how to post them.

Unfortunately it was sold to a collector in NJ. The deptartment wanted to keep it but, as always, where do you keep it.

Just a reminder, the seminar is tonight and it would be great to see everyone there.

Keep checking Ebay, but be prepared to pay for it

Just a reminder for everyone to put this on their calendars.

Unfortunately Purchase no longer has the old Seagrave Quad, it had to be sold due to space consierations.

you buy a house, you should do your homework as to the location

Amen, this is like the people who buy homes at the end of a runway and then complain about the airport. Or next to or across the street from a firehouse and complain about noise, or next to a beautiful babbling brook that floods them out when we're hit with torrential rains. These are the same people who build beach homes right on the water, have them swept away by the next hurricane and then expect the government( we the taxpayers) to pay them for it.

What kind of numbskull buys a home without looking at these kinds of things?

I'll need a lesson on how to do that.

bump

I'd have to go on record as saying that they are a useful tool in the fire service.

While I've seen my own department whittle itself down to a single whistle from 2 bells (not house bells, actual fire bells), a horn and a whistle up until the mid '90's and even that whistle has been out of service for quite a while due to the batteries for the gamewell system no longer being available, I've also seen a corresponding drop off in the manpower at working calls.

In a smaller Department pagers are generally available to everyone, in a larger Department they have to be rationed to only the most active members. The whistle/horn was a great way to turn out the guys who didn't have pagers but would respond to major incidents.

As to the pager and nextel issue, belive me with a lawn mower, leaf blower, being in church etc. you don't hear the pager.

The really important part of this is, if I'm not mistaken NYS law requires an audible signal if the fire service is predominantly volunteer. The city of Rye went through this several years ago and that was the reason they were kept over the extremely vocal objections of the NIMBY/ FOT crowd.

Heck, I can remember as a little guy the horns going off in Mt. Vernon for a fire.

According to NYFD.com Ladder Co. 72 was never organised, perhaps you remember a reserve ladder that had been stored in the house.

The WCVFA announces that a FASNY seminar will be held here in Westchester.

The seminar will be on Marina fires and will be given by the retired Chief of Marine Operations, FDNY.

The course will be held on Tuesday September 14, 2004 from 7pm to 10pm at The Doral Arrowood Hotel and Conference Center, 975 Anderson Hill Rd. in Rye Brook. Registration will begin at 6pm.

Admission is $5 for FASNY members and $10 for non-members. The $10 paid by non-members will be used as the application fee for the state firemens association and the individuals will become members of FASNY.

If you have any questions please contact me through this web-site

You boys are all going to end up with hernias.

Gloves

A 20' piece of utility line

A Spanner Wrench

And some where inside a personal dosimeter (God Forbid)

Port Chester HQ and the old South Main St. firehouse use to have them but they were removed in the late 1940's for two reasons, the accidents & shennanigans and they were taking up to much room for the larger rigs that were coming in after the war.

It does have to dried, especially the older canvas jacketed hose so it doesn't rot (yes we still have a few lengths). The newer stuff is great and wouldn't be bothered by water, the problem is all the new fun chemicals and fluids that soak in and have to be washed out before it can be dried then repacked. Some of this stuff does a job on the newer nylon and rubber jacketed hose.

As to it's only going to get wet again; well, you take care of it and it will last a lot longer and when you don't have alot of money to throw around that becomes a big consideration.