Calls coming in

[ResTech]

I am licensed as a Technician class... I currently only have a HT (Yaesu VX-170) and want to get a mobile for better coverage. My car doesnt have a lot of room so need a radio with a remote head like the FT-7900R.

I had considered the 1802 but with limited mounting options I dont think it would work to well in my car.

 

[TransportJockey]

I am licensed as a Technician class... I currently only have a HT (Yaesu VX-170) and want to get a mobile for better coverage. My car doesnt have a lot of room so need a radio with a remote head like the FT-7900R.

I had considered the 1802 but with limited mounting options I dont think it would work to well in my car.

Cool. I always mention the license issue cause some people think they can just chat on them with no requirements. I'm a Tech as well.

The 1802 works well i the Jeep cause it's always mounted up above my head. In the CJ its in a locking unit along with a CB. On the TJ I had, it was just mounted on a bar between the spreaders.

 

[MrBrown]

Our station tones go off for emergent jobs only (p1) anything else just gets put onto the pagers.

For volunteer-on call or paid-on call the jobs go to pager or you will get a phone call from the dispatcher.

Portable radios are specific to each vehicle and are as such, left in the vehicle at the end of the shift; they are not taken off station although tere may be an exception for rural volunteers.

Staff off duty "responding" to a call recieved via EACC is not done, thats what we have duty crews for. Personally I think anybody that does it a bit weird. There is an exception, which is on call staff.

As far as somebody who is off duty happening upon a scene (like somebody who is first on scene at a car wreck) or a solo crewed vehicle who needs a second pair of hands yes I have heard of that happening and in the latter, is most welcome!

 

[paccookie]

I don't have a scanner or a radio that I take home. My mom had a scanner in her volunteer fire/early EMS days and I remember HATING it. It would squeal at all hours of the day and night and she and my stepdad would turn the volume up every time it made a peep. As others have said, when I'm off duty, I am OFF DUTY. If I happened to be first on scene to an MVC while driving down the road, sure, I'll stop. But I will not go out of my way to find trouble when I'm off the clock. I work enough hours on the clock, I certainly don't need to spend any more time working.

 

[EMSLaw]

Our squad has duty crews for each night, who sleep in the station and are awakened by a very loud siren when the tones drop. Also, everyone has pagers. However, the only time people who are "off duty" would respond is if both of the duty rigs were already on a call, and in that case, an "all call" would go out, asking off-duty people to report to the station to respond to the 'extra' call.

So, other than the rare all call, if you have something similar, stay home and get some sleep.

 

[Akulahawk]

My mobile is a Yaesu FT-1802M. Works great in the Jeep, and has withstood more bumps and jolts than anything else. This is actually the second Jeep I've mounted it in. And if you get a ham set, make sure you're licensed and be aware that it is illegal to modify the 2m radio's to transmit on public service frequencies.

Actually, it's generally illegal to TRANSMIT outside of your authorized bands... or on equipment that is not type-certified for use on those bands.

HAM service radios are generally capable of transmitting well outside their authorized frequencies. Modern radios are software defined... their main limitation is the SWR that can be seen by the radio when you use a mismatched antenna for the transmit frequency.

 

[Hal9000]

Paid and Volunteer

Paid:
I go home and have no radio. I used to have a scanner for listening to airline frequencies and the towered field. Now someone hosts it online for me. I turn my pager off at home. If they really need ME (Which they won't.), they can leave me a message on my cellphone. I keep my cellphone on silent or off unless I'm on a trip, so good luck with that, too.

Volunteer:
Volunteers are required to be within 3 minutes of the station regardless of the conditions. Most people stay at the facilities which are excellent. We have uniforms for all volunteers. We have a good sized group which lofts at the station for jobs as they commute from other cities. Responders are not to respond in POVs to scenes.

I live stupidly close and don't have a scanner. I do have a department radio. If I am on, it might be on, but mostly not, as my pager takes care of that for me. My pager is only on when I am. Sometimes I'll forget and be sleeping and wake up because I left it on, in which case I'll roll over and punch it off.

Unless requested to dispatch, off-duty members are not to involve themselves with calls.

 

[RescueYou]

Well so sorry that I listen for calls off duty. It's not like I sit around waiting. I work, study, spend time with family/friends, run errands, etc just like you guys. EMS isn't my profession anymore because I'm now a full-time student. We only require 12hrs a week for volunteers (so basically 1 night) and let me make this clear: I DO NOT SEE EMS AS A "JOB TO WORK AT". It's a strong passion for me and I believe the saying "If you enjoy what you do, you never work a day in your life." I don't say "I have to pull time tonight" or "I have to go down to the station" or anything like that. It's more of "I get to volunteer tonight" or "I get to stay at the crew hall tonight" for me. After 5 years of this, I still consider serving as a volunteering or getting paid for this a priviledge. I'm just a woman who loves to spend her time running calls and doesn't mind giving some of her free time off-duty up for the field. It's not common to get calls that I feel are more urgent than others near me so it's not even like it's a lot of time either. If ABCs are fine, I don't go.
As for self-dispatching...we're told we are welcome to meet crews on-scene anytime but we won't be in the rig transporting unless you complete an ALS truck. Note that 95% of our volunteer crew does the same thing.
Quite frankly, I posted this thread to simply get answers as to what you do in the situations, not your opinions.

 

[ResTech]

RescueYou.... its all good... don't let it get to you. I have been doing EMS going on 15 years and I have always had a scanner in the house, in my vehicle, and used to always carry a Minitor (only have one in the house now). Granted, I don't listen nearly like I used to but I still enjoy it. I like to know what's going on sometimes in the County so I listen.

A lot of ppl on here have no idea what its like to be a volunteer and respond to EMS calls from your house. I used to do it all the time as first response or to meet staffing requirements for the ambulance.

I don't care what anyone else thinks really. Im the farthest thing from a whacker... I just like radio communication and at night laying in bed I find it relaxing to listen to it... I also used to be a dispatcher.

There is nothing wrong with having a home scanner and wanting to be informed when out of the station. As a volunteer, you are always on duty... again a concept many cannot grasp on this forum.

 

[Hal9000]

Whoa, whoa, don't get all upset. ^_^ I would only take issue with your second item about "self-dispatching." Adding random units to scenes decreases safety and scene control, especially at roadway MVAs. Our volunteer crews are competent enough that they will request additional EMS if warranted. Is self dispatching needed? Does it save statistically significant amounts of time? If your times are so slow that it is needed, perhaps a QRU or additional ambulance are needed and should be considered.

I'm fully familiar with both paid and volunteer services (I've worked both.) and how it is to go to a station to respond. I find crew dynamics and CRM to be important and am a stickler for safety. I have worked in volunteer systems where crews could self-dispatch, and while some, such as yourself, may be competent enough to do so, I do not like the concept. Such an act means that, as a volunteer, I would represent my service without having my gear, which is on the ambulance, with me. Furthermore, I would be alone and not a part of a team. I do not feel safe with that.

I'm glad there are people that enjoy what they do!


Oh, and I've owned scanners and listened to traffic, although never LE/EMS/FD traffic to much degree.

 

[kittaypie]

If ABCs are fine, I don't go.

i don't know how many calls that have come out at "sick person" "seizure" or "unknown medical aid", etc. (seemingly non life-threatening situations) that have ended up being full arrests. i had a call that came out as a "seizure" and ended up being a young woman with her throat sliced open from ear-to-ear.

and then the calls that DO come out as full arrests are usually people that have been dead for a few hours or days.

you can't base everything on the nature of the call dispatched over the radio. on the other hand, if i'm not on duty i'm not gonna be listening to a scanner or responding to anything in my POV. so kudos to you on helping out your community that way.

 

[Akulahawk]

It almost boggles the mind how different calls are dispatched vs. what they actually present to you as. Of course, every once in a while you get a "chest pain" who is also complaining of a "bleeding finger"... and their finger isn't bleeding... maybe they figured that the bleeding would get us there quicker???

 

[WolfmanHarris]

The only tones I get at home is the weird robot voice that rings once in awhile and says "There are shifts available today in _____." I think they switched to an automated OT call-in for fear of medics killing schedulers when getting woken up at 0500 asked if they'd like to work.

Truly volunteer EMS is essentially unknown in Ontario. The only call-outs I'm getting from home are for OT or in the event of a disaster a sup may start calling to bring in crews to upstaff.

In fact the way the provincial radio system is laid out makes scanning the channels an exercise in hacking due to a digital trunking system. When an unknown radio logs onto the system the dispatcher will challenge the serial number and can lock it out of the system.

In smaller services the duty officer may take a radio home with them, but they are generally on call for a 24hr period. Even then, any service I've seen with this, the DO has their radio off unless someone calls them and wakes them up to respond. (For admin duties, not usually as a medic)

Now with all that out of the way, when I'm at work our dispatch system works likes this:
In the base: Tones go out over the base pager calling us to the truck with a priority and intersection. Get in the truck and book on and dispatch provides the call details. Minor calls or stable IFT's (rare) may ring over the "red phone" as will admin calls from dispatch.

In the truck: No tones, just a radio call to our unit number. Confirmed by crew and then call details given.

 

[nomofica]

OP is a beacon that shouts "I'm a whacker". You don't need to self-dispatch yourself to scenes where you shouldn't be because you're off duty. It only complicates things and, in some circumstances, could make the scene less safe than if you weren't there. If you respond to a road-side MVC, another person on scene heightens the risk of a car vs. human situation.

While it's not bad to have a scanner/radio in your home/car, it doesn't need to be on all hours of the day. I'll admit, I'll listen to my city's Fire and EMS as well as the STARS (Shock Trauma Air Rescue Society; my province's air ambulance service) radio chatter on my computer or iPod (it's hosted online), and I do it out of simple curiosity as to what's going on in my city and the major incidents within the province. Again, while I do that it's only once in a while.

Like I've seen in this thread before, you need to get a hobby (besides jumping in your POV and making great haste to get onto a scene where you shouldn't be in the first place). Take up photography or learn to play an instrument or something.

 

[Seaglass]

One place: we need to stay in the middle of our response area. We stay in uniform and can meet on-scene if it'll be faster, but usually just meet at the station. We carry radios that will definitely wake you up if you're asleep. Off-duty is off-duty.

Another: you can go home if you live really close, but few people do. The bunkroom has a nice set of floodlights and a siren, and tones go off everywhere in the building. Some very rare people can sleep through them, but they know who they are and tell other crew members to make sure they get up. Some extra volunteers carry pagers at home in case we need more resources than we put up.

If we're off duty and happen to run across something, we're encouraged to help if needed, but most people won't unless they have a lot of time to spare. I've only done it once, and that was because the number of wrecks was bigger than the number of responders, and I'd just passed the rest of the closest two departments at another major scene. If we do stop, the officer in charge has full authority to have us do whatever he needs... so it's not like we can just decide to only work on the coolest patient.

 

[Sieldan]

I am licensed as a Technician class... I currently only have a HT (Yaesu VX-170) and want to get a mobile for better coverage. My car doesnt have a lot of room so need a radio with a remote head like the FT-7900R.

I had considered the 1802 but with limited mounting options I dont think it would work to well in my car.

Cool. I always mention the license issue cause some people think they can just chat on them with no requirements. I'm a Tech as well.

The 1802 works well i the Jeep cause it's always mounted up above my head. In the CJ its in a locking unit along with a CB. On the TJ I had, it was just mounted on a bar between the spreaders.

The 7800 is the baby brother to the 7900, and is an excellent radio. It was my first radio and spent many years in my truck, to be replaced with an 8800 and moved to my desk as a base unit. And yes, it is modified for public safty freqs as I am an EC for my county. However, only in times of extreme emergencys would I ever transmit on those freqs.

To the OP, in my area it would be next to impossible to monitor dispatch since they use 800mhz trunked systems. So, no I dont monitor, and no I dont self dispatch.

 

[NEMed2]

Um... No. I don't have a scanner, I don't listen for calls when I'm off duty, and I certainly don't plan on responding to a call I hear on my non-existent scanner in my POV wearing my jammies.

Ow ooowwww

 

[guardian528]

When you are awakened at home (off duty) in the middle of the night by a call coming in...

i can understand listening to a scanner at home, i sometimes do, but there is a point at which it becomes excessive. waking up in the middle of the night on your off-time just to listen to the call is what i would call excessive.