Dispatching apps for cell phones?

[FireEMSPolice]

I am trying to get my Chief to issue me a radio or pager so I can better respond to calls, but so far no dice. I know these products are not cheap and there are some former members who never returned the equipment and some current members who have them that seldom respond to calls that the FD needs to aggressively pursue to get the equipment back.

Mean time, we try apps as a means of responding:

I am Responding - This is not bad but I feel we under utilize it. We use it to send daily messages on the manpower level (we are PT and volunteer) and other stuff from our Officers and Association. Seldom does anyone mark "enroute" on it or anything else.

Active911 - We are trying this in hopes of replacing "I am Responding." It sucks. Some members have said that when they downloaded it, they stopped getting messages from "I am Responding" or have noticed decreased functionality from IaR. I have been trying it since 4-7 and this app has only recorded 1 call for me. I had my Lieutenant at my house and he didnt get any calls from either app and was taken aback. I brought this to the Chief's attention as well and he did something, which did not help at all. If you do download this app, turn off the GPS feature. When most of us downloaded it that night and discovered we can be tracked within feet, everyone turned it off as we didnt want everyone knowing where we were at at all times.

Other then that, I have access to a website that shows the CAD live but thats only useful if you are looking at it. I even offered to buy a pager or radio and program it, all at my expense but no dice.

What should I do? I want to stay involved and respond to calls rather then just respond to calls if I happen to be on-station.

 

[hawkspringsfire]

What is the name of the CAD you run in your area? The CAD we have here has the option to send text via incidents to cell phones. Sunridge systems is the one we use. The cell phone text is secondary to our pagers we have.

 

[MRFD715]

We've been using IAR for about 6 months now and we are very happy with it. We are an all volunteer department and everyone responds from home to the station. Once we got a few things ironed out with dispatch it has worked very well and our members are very good about giving a response when a call comes in. A couple of counties next to us use Active 911 and, having seen how that works, I think IAR is a better program. I know there are others out there but I have no experience with them. All that being said IAR is a secondary alert system for us, we rely on our pagers/radios for primary alerting.

 

[NEB]

Go to your rule board about getting pagers back. We use a local app, Page My Cell, and it doesn't work a good part of the time either. Cell phone apps are great as a back up or when you're far away from home and want to know what's going on, but I sure wouldn't rely on one as my primary notification.

 

[7d9_z28]

Is your chief against you purchasing your own pager or radio? You can pick up a nice used Minitor pager and have it programmed fairly cheap. Or maybe theres a scanner available with some sort of alert feature?

Sort of sounds like theres just as much a staff problem as there is an app problem.

 

[wilsonbr90]

We use iamresponding. Dispatch does monitor it fairly well. We are all volunteer around here. They inquire about needing additional pages based on who is signed in responding.

There are times where it works good, and other times it's delayed. It has been progressively getting better. I think it all comes down to cell carrier as well. I was at&t and now verizon. They both reacted differently when calls were placed.

If your not a digital system, there are scanners that you can program your tones into if that information is available to you. Or buy your own pager. A radio I could see them frowning about if you don't have non operations transmit permission. Whether you had it set up to transmit or not, not so technically savvy people might not understand that you can't transmit.

It's suppose to be pagers first, iar second. But around here iar is fairly accurate, maybe a 10 second delay to initial tones. By the time I get the text I usually go grab my Pager or radio and rock out the door.

 

[Sparky_911]

There are also several other discussions about this if you search around a bit.

We use New World Systems Aegis CAD (recently bought out by Tyler Systems). There is an app for them you can download but the feature has to be turned on at the dispatch end (its not, costs $$), then you need permissions from dispatch IT and staff to actually use it.

Several of the area depts. in my county use IAR (again, costs $$) as a backup to the countywide paging system, but not as a primary means. We do get complaints occasionally (my day job is dispatch supervisor) that it's not working, so I call IT and 95% of the time they say its IAR not us....

Now, my dept. uses a form of paging to text software (as a backup) that someone locally designed (free to us, and use). We have a base radio hooked up to a PC in the comm. room. What it basically does is record the audio, send out an email to your cell phone number, which then converts it to an SMS text message, enabling you to listen to the page. The text usually hits my phone just as the dispatcher is done airing the call out on the radio.

 

[Chris W]

If you are not having luck with Active911 it is a configuration issue. Also, it would have zero impact on IAR. Is your system reliably sending pages for dispatches out to Active911/IAR etc. If not, you will have a problem with any program you choose to use. I am very familiar with Active911.

 

[Zapp Brannigan]

Guy in my department has an IT company, has an app a lot of local departments are using.

http://spotteddogtech.com/

 

[tsquale]

We use Active 911 extensively for PD, FD, and EMS. It has been great for us and sometimes beats the pager going off by several seconds. The mapping capability is nice for folks new to the area.

 

[ShadowSwipe]

E-Dispatch is reliable and quick.

 

[JazzDad]

We use eDispatchs as a back-up. It's been good enough that some of the neighboring departments have subscribed to their system, too. I usually see less than a 30 second time lag, but that could be attributed to the cell network itself.

 

[FireEMSPolice]

The Chief is just picky it sounds like on who gets a pager or radio and who doesnt, especially since they are in short supply. However, most rely on these apps as a primary method of being alerted. I even told him I can get a Minitor V for cheap. No dice. He is always asking the volunteers help the part-time staff, and I want to but I feel hamstrung. Yesterday, while on station, an LT and I got an IAR page for a call...45 mins after we cleared it and the patient was in the ER. It was so confusing that for some reason Dispatch tried to tone us out for it and we called them and told us to clear us off he call before they toned us out.

I get it, I am new (still on probation) and dont live really close, but I can make the 2nd truck. At the same time, I am VERY active. I spend much of my free time on station and grabbing calls from there. Mean time, I missed a structure fire a couple of days ago because I didnt get a message on my app. I rely sole on having to check the CAD or listen to a scanner really....not good. I am trying to leverage the Lieutenants and Captain to get a pager issued to me.

 

[JazzDad]

I don't know, but it sounds like your chief isn't too keen on managing his resources very well. Most departments are wanting all the (serious) help they can lay their hands on.

 

[Jarred J.]

[Broken External Image]:https://41.media.tumblr.com/07141e45321ff22f0d5dbf775b54fc2a/tumblr_nvg573z9ik1twyt3do1_500.jpg

 

[FireEMSPolice]

[Broken External Image]:https://41.media.tumblr.com/07141e45321ff22f0d5dbf775b54fc2a/tumblr_nvg573z9ik1twyt3do1_500.jpg

That line of thinking has gotten me in more trouble then I can imagine more times then not

 

[Flashguy]

That line of thinking has gotten me in more trouble then I can imagine more times then not

....but did you achieve greatness?

 

[bullfrog4ever]

We use Active 911 in our neck of the woods. Most of us like it, but not everyone uses it properly and marks their response. However, as with any piece of technology, it's not 100% reliable. We've had times where the Active 911 page never came through or only a few get the page. But this can be true for any app, no matter what it is.

With that said, not all pagers are reliable either. I've missed calls due to my pager not activating or only heard them because I had my radio on.

Me personally, I'd just get a pager and have it programmed and call it a day. Ask for forgiveness and not permission. I did the same when I bought my radio. Technically, I'm not allowed to have one. But, I got one, programmed it and use it to scan. Chief found out and just said OK, be responsible with it, I trust you. I can only speak on it in extreme circumstances or while on an actual call.

 

[FireEMSPolice]

I am still on probation so I need to watch what I do and say. I already got jammed up by some miscommunication and violated a direct order. Chief personally told me how pissed he was so in a way I am lucky to still be on the FD.

If I get a radio programmed, it will surely get back to him by the vendor when they try to verify who I am. On a different note, while cleaning out and organizing a station last night I stumbled upon a cache of radios and a few pagers (dont know ifthey knew about them or not in this cabinet) so I am going to see if I can take one, program it at my expense.

 

[tsquale]

We use Active 911 in our neck of the woods. Most of us like it, but not everyone uses it properly and marks their response. However, as with any piece of technology, it's not 100% reliable. We've had times where the Active 911 page never came through or only a few get the page. But this can be true for any app, no matter what it is.

That is our biggest issue; operator error. Our out of town folks love it for the mapping capabilities and GPS location to see where others are responding from.

 

[bullfrog4ever]

I am still on probation so I need to watch what I do and say. I already got jammed up by some miscommunication and violated a direct order. Chief personally told me how pissed he was so in a way I am lucky to still be on the FD.

If I get a radio programmed, it will surely get back to him by the vendor when they try to verify who I am. On a different note, while cleaning out and organizing a station last night I stumbled upon a cache of radios and a few pagers (dont know ifthey knew about them or not in this cabinet) so I am going to see if I can take one, program it at my expense.

If your walking on thin ice, I understand not pushing the limits at the moment. Hopefully after finding those extra radios and pagers, the Chief will let you get one programmed for you.

 

[RescueWV]

We've been using IaR for 5ish years. Definitely not reliable. There were a few months a while back where it just was not texting AT&T phones at all. A good number of people use it for the response status features, and we have multiple screens in the apparatus bay, so it's been helpful for IC to be able to notify county when to re-alert or replace apparatus based on staffing.

We had a small test group get signed up with Active911 over the last year. They liked it, and thought it was much more versatile, especially with the mapping capabilities. But they weren't an official committee and so their recommendation was largely ignored when the officers opted to renew our contract with IaR. They liked the ability to text the entire membership, which was a feature they didn't see in Active911.

Honestly, I think these apps are a great reminder of why redundancy is important. We have a siren, tone pagers, and IaR, and I can think of specific instances where I've been made aware of calls by only one of the three.

---

That said, I was in a very similar situation as yours when I first joined this department. I was getting contradicting answers from the deputy chief and assistant chief about what was required to be issued a pager; I was getting contradicting answers in terms of whether pagers were even available. Similar to something you had said, they had members who had been issued pagers who were NOT active, and as a result they were hesitant to give anything to a rookie. Finally, one of the junior officers who had sort of taken me under his wing received a pager from a member who was quitting, and gave it to me, sort of circumventing the disagreement between the chiefs.

Unfortunately, these are the kinds of department politics that do shit for member retention. Since you're presumably already on thin ice, don't push too hard, but remember that the squeaky wheel gets the grease, and if you show yourself to be a valuable member, your constant requests for a pager will hopefully be heard at some point.

 

[theroofable]

What kind of department doesn't want you to have a pager? If you buy your own, they can't tell you that you can't have it. It is your own property. There are no laws that says someone can't have a pager. Its not like you are monitoring some secret military frequency.
Also, if you leave the dept, what purpose would it serve to keep the pager? It is simple, file a theft report with the local pd with the issued pager serial number, and I bet it makes its way back to the dept rather quickly.
Sounds like the chief is confused on what issues he should be worrying about. Being on thin ice for wanting to have a pager to respond to fires? Never heard of such a problem, but best of luck to you! Let us know how it works out for you.