# Off Duty but still concerned?



## LifeAlert101 (Jul 21, 2017)

Hey guys! So I was just curious to see how many of you listen to whats going on in your city using either a radio or the tool Broadcastify while you're not on duty. I learned that a lot of my fire house friends like to just keep Broadcastify open on their phones when they're off duty just to stay in the loop.


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## reaper (Jul 21, 2017)

When I clock out, I am off duty. You make this your life and you will burn out.

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## redundantbassist (Jul 21, 2017)

I honestly couldn't care less what happens at work when i'm not at work.


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## NysEms2117 (Jul 21, 2017)

As others say. Separate work and home. I don't do anything regarding work at home. If I absolutely need to, I walk outside or leave. It's just not healthy otherwise


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## DrParasite (Jul 21, 2017)

If I hear a major incident occurring where I work, I might turn on broadcastify because I'm nosey (and we do recalls for major incidents once they are confirmed).  I do the same thing when my old FD gets a fire.  Then again, if I can't sleep, I might put on the NYPD Special Ops channel, or FDNY city wide channel as background noise.  

Or if I want to be entertained, I put on Newark (NJ) PD, they are usually really good for a laugh.

But no, I don't own any radios or scanners, and I don't listen to any apps simply in case something happens.


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## luke_31 (Jul 21, 2017)

Off duty is off duty. Unless the SHTF, I don't worry about what is going on. If it's bad enough it will make the news or more likely I'll get a phone call from a supervisor asking me to report back to work, to assist with the incident.


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## VentMonkey (Jul 21, 2017)

There is _*A LOT*_ to be said about personal health and well-being; all I got.


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## DrParasite (Jul 21, 2017)

By the way, there are several news services that are tailor made and monitored by scanner heads (and usually firefighters)  who will notify you about an incident in the area of your choosing....

http://breakingnewsnetwork.com/
http://www.1rwn.com/
http://carolinasfirepage.com/
http://www.metrofire.org/
http://www.newenglandfirenews.com/
http://www.providencecitywide.com/

and I am sure there are more, but those were ones I found using a quick google search.

you have to pay for most of them (its usually a nominal fee to support their services), but if you want to know what's happening in an area, and don't want to be glued to a scanner or radio 24/7, this might be a good option for you, depending on where you live and what their coverage area is.

I won't encourage or discourage their use, but I do think that listening to radios and scanners 24/7 will cause a decrease in your mental aptitude.


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## planetmike (Jul 21, 2017)

To stay in the loop? Any juicy calls I'll hear about the next time I'm at the station. There's no need to listen in on the radio when off duty, that's just asking for headaches from your family/friends.


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## DesertMedic66 (Jul 21, 2017)

I could really care less what is going on when I am off duty. There could be an MCI going on and I wouldn’t listen to anything. If there is an incident on a huge scale then we will get phone calls from Dispatch and supervisors. 

The only time I will listen to the scanner is when there is a wild land fire in my city. That is just to keep up to date on where it is, road closures, and evac areas.


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## Summit (Jul 21, 2017)

Anything interesting I'll hear about later. I'll only listen to the radio to figure out when a road closure might end or if SHTF.


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## GMCmedic (Jul 21, 2017)

Since my volunteer FD and my EMS employer use the same system for paging out runs, I hear most of the EMS runs if my pager is on open frequency, which is rare.

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## hometownmedic5 (Jul 21, 2017)

My quiet weeks are 72 hours. 84 is typical, 96 becoming a far to regular thing. My point is, I spend the better part of a hundred hours a week listening to 1-3 radios, sometimes all at once(agency, FD, PD). When I'm at home, the last thing in the world I want to listen to is a radio. 

I have a scanner. I'd have to chisel the dust off of it, but I can't rightly say I don't own one. If there is a major incident in my town, where I both live and work, and this incident has the capacity to change the course of my day, and I am notified by other means that it is taking place, I might flip on a radio. Short of the nuclear power plant going up or the outbreak of the zombie apocalypse, no I don't scan.


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## EpiEMS (Jul 21, 2017)

I have a local twitter that alerts of major incidents...so I can stay away from them.


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## Akulahawk (Jul 21, 2017)

I do own a scanner but it no longer "works" for the radio system locally for EMS purposes as that part of the system was "rebanded" and went to a P25 digital system. My scanner is good but it's not a P25-capable scanner as it doesn't do digital. If something seems to be going that I need to know about, I'll turn on Broadcastify and use that. That service has both "sides" of the Fire/EMS dispatch around here so I won't miss much if I need to listen in. 

I did use both Broadcastify and my HT ham rig to listen to a couple very large fires that happened near my previous workplace last year... helped tremendously hearing they were closing my primary route to work. Other than that kind of stuff, I don't really listen to "work stuff" much.


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## Tigger (Jul 21, 2017)

There were a bunch of city engines across the street last night so I turned it on to see what was up, just curious really. I leave my active911 by accident a lot and when it goes off I might look and see where they're running to.


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## Jim37F (Jul 21, 2017)

At my last company, we didn't have in rig radios with the fire department but the company actually sold little scanner radios (technically capable of two way, but the way they were programmed it was scanner only), for those of us who liked the extra situational awareness (Their dispatch was the ones who actually talked to the callers, so just listening in to their dispatch talking to the engines/quints/squads you'd hear updates before they called our dispatch). I have been known to have kept mine on whilst driving home, mostly out of simply overlooking turning it off lol but a couple of times I heard a TC or something get dispatched on the freeway I was planning on driving down to get home, allowing me to take a different route home to avoid the inevitable looky loo traffic. Aaaaaand to be perfectly honest after a shift or two that was a stand up 24 I may or may not have heard "Rescue 41's" on the radio as I was leaving the station and laughed "ha, not it! A/B Shift can do some work for a change....." And if I forgot to turn it off once at home to plug into the charger that quickly changed as I really didn't care much for what banality County was talking about when there's a perfectly good tv in the house.


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## StCEMT (Jul 21, 2017)

I opened one once to see if they actually worked, after that I wasn't curious anymore. I am hitting 10+ calls a day just on my own, I don't care what I miss when I am off.


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## agregularguy (Jul 22, 2017)

Where I work now, and my previous paid agency I would never ever listen off duty. As others before, if I wanted to hear about a cool call, I'd hear about it the next day. However, my little brother recently started with the volunteer fire department  I "grew up" or first started in, and I happen to get the dispatch texts for them still. So if they have a major incident, and I happen to be home with nothing better to do, I might throw that on for a bit but otherwise when I'm home I don't listen at all.


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## NomadicMedic (Jul 22, 2017)

I don't live in the county where I work, so no interest. However, I am a bit of a radio geek and have several. I just don't listen all that often. Most of them are for Event work. I rent radios to many of the events in town.


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## LifeAlert101 (Jul 22, 2017)

So I guess I fall into the sparky category. I'm still fresh out and if I was to guess I've probably done around 50 calls to date so I guess I'm still in my honey moon phase.


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## terrible one (Jul 31, 2017)

I live 10/15 minutes from the stations I work at and like others said when I'm off I'm off. I don't talk about work, I don't think about it, and the last thing I'd want to do is hear it when I'm home. I enjoy my days off too much to care what's happening at work. I'll find out anything important that I missed when I return.


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## reaper (Jul 31, 2017)

terrible one said:


> I live 10/15 minutes from the stations I work at and like others said when I'm off I'm off. I don't talk about work, I don't think about it, and the last thing I'd want to do is hear it when I'm home. I enjoy my days off too much to care what's happening at work. I'll find out anything important that I missed when I return.


Yeah, I hate being on my off weekend, watching live PD and seeing what happens at work! Haha

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## terrible one (Jul 31, 2017)

I don't think the cities I work in have Live PD, if they did I may watch an episode lol. One of the deputies in my city is pretty good looking haha


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## DesertMedic66 (Jul 31, 2017)

reaper said:


> Yeah, I hate being on my off weekend, watching live PD and seeing what happens at work! Haha
> 
> Sent from my VS985 4G using Tapatalk


I’ll take cops any day over live PD. With cops they edit all the boring stuff out. With live PD it’s more like “now let’s get back to lt. Jeff in AZ to see what is going on” “well Jeff is on break at the local donut shop. Let’s see what kind of donut he gets”


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## DrParasite (Jul 31, 2017)

LifeAlert101 said:


> So I guess I fall into the sparky category. I'm still fresh out and if I was to guess I've probably done around 50 calls to date so I guess I'm still in my honey moon phase.


Nothing wrong with being a little sparky.  Many of us were sparky when we started; some of us still are....

One thing I think should be emphasized (and others have made this point): when you are with your friends and family, and doing stuff that is productive, you don't need a scanner on, and shouldn't care what happens when you're not at work.  Enjoy your off time, and your time away from public safety.  I'm sure the crews will give you a huge update next time you show up for a shift.


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## NPO (Aug 12, 2017)

I'll be the odd man out. I've got a radio on somewhere near me quite often at home, tuned to the local dept. For many, it's a hobby to listen to scanners, why, I can't really explain. I grew up listening to scanners to listen for my dad at work, and it stuck. 

Nowadays I keep it on because I work for the local dept as a photographer (I use the term work loosely). It's kept on low, and I drown it out as background noise. If there's something important happening it'll peak my attention and I might grab my fire gear and camera. 

Nothing wrong with listening to radios to keep your brain going or as background noise, I constantly need 2-3 sources of sensory stimuli or I get stir crazy. Just don't go running into medical aids with a bottle of asprin because it came out as chest pain.

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## RocketMedic (Aug 12, 2017)

Some of our people live in-district and first-respond to some calls.


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## Jim37F (Aug 13, 2017)

NPO said:


> Nothing wrong with listening to radios to keep your brain going or as background noise, I constantly need 2-3 sources of sensory stimuli or I get stir crazy. Just don't go running into medical aids with a bottle of aspirin because it came out as chest pain.
> 
> Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk


Sometimes when I went home in the morning I kept my scanner on because slugging through traffic sucked and just the variation from the regular radio helped me avoid stir craziness.....Once at home I quickly turned it off the few times I left in on for a bit because then it just started bugging me, but yeah, for hour long drives (my normal commute time in LA) or more, I have found some what helpful....now I live all of 10-15 min away from my Academy (and I searched apartments in a narrow circle from it to keep it short) explicitly because I was sick and tired of "45min drive on a good day with no traffic" lol!


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## bakertaylor28 (Aug 16, 2017)

Um... Yeah. By end of shift why anyone would subject themselves to the repeated trauma of continuing to listen to the sqawk box is beyond me. But when your off for a weekend you strangely start to feel naked without it.


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## NYMedic453 (Aug 22, 2017)

Depends what is going on. Sometimes I listen and sometimes I don't


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## Bullets (Sep 2, 2017)

DrParasite said:


> Or if I want to be entertained, I put on Newark (NJ) PD, they are usually really good for a laugh.



And SPEN 4 aint what it used to be

When im off im off, but if i see an Alert from my PDs twitter ill turn it on. We get recalled for "hot jobs"


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## Giant81 (Sep 11, 2017)

Yes, I keep my radio on scan when I'm not 'on-call' but mostly because we're a volunteer department and even if it's not my weekend, there is a chance if something big goes down they could use all hands on deck.  I also listen to the scanner when I AM on call instead of just leaving my pager on our department because it gives you kind of a heads up on something that may be coming your way.  Like if I'm lounging around at home in my PJ bottoms, and a neighboring department gets a multi-car, I'll toss my pants and shoes on in the chance we get called mutual aid. 

But my situation is different than most on this board.  I probably run as many calls in a month as many here run in a day.  

EDIT: forgot to mention I also have a tendency to listen for EMS calls and then run through the scenarios in my head.  What am I looking for?, what are my interventions?, what are my local protocols for those interventions?, do I need online medcontrol to administer that medication?, etc... Sometimes it prompts a look at that chapter in my textbook to re-familiarize myself with some of the different nuances for some conditions.


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