Ongoing discussions regarding other fire dispatching in San Diego County including Heartland, NorthComm, Monte Vista, etc. Topics about general wildland fire scanning are also welcome here.
Anyone know how we can start if possible some sort of SD Fire ticker of incidents that are occurring now, or even a pager notification of incidents. Not happy with IPN, would prefer something locally we can start if possible.
Either way is fine with me. Just would like to see something if anything can be done, would appreciate it and would MAKE my scanning expirence my enjoyable as well as others...
Let me know
And while we are on the subject, maybe Heartland and RSF dispatch ?
I hate to rain on the parade as they say, but the first, and most important question is where to get the dispatch information from.
IPN doesn't put out everything and there are periods where nothing comes out all day. They have a large network of monitor-dispatchers who enter the information into the system. With their large base of dispatchers they are able to accomplish what you already get. Since they are volunteer, they cannot be expected to work all day, every day. With all of that said and with all of the effort that does go into their system to achieve what they do, that indicates to me that it would be a major undertaking to do this.
The only way to do better is to have full-time paid employees do nothing but monitor and enter the information and this would be at a considerable expense. I'm sure IPN knows this and has weighed the costs vs. returns.
If a resource was available such as the CHP CAD, it would be do-able. Orange County Sheriff has a real-time CAD that would be tapped to feed a ticker, but aside from the CHP, no one in San Diego does.
So my question is: who/how to get the information we need in the first place.
As best as I can see, IPN is the best game in town
You are correct. I was wondering if something can be done like that, but it doesnt look that way for san diego. I know trying to get the agencies to do this would be.....well....lets say.....painful. I am sure "picking pages" out of the air for their alpha mates can be done but would probably involved a whole lot of tech stuff. Oh well just a thought...thanks for letting me discuss the option.
I agree with Sean. I talked to the IPN guys and they told me that there several ways to input into their system but not all the members take advantage of the program. Im sure that if more active members of the IPN system were to take part it would be better.
Plus ...there are DAYS and DAYS that do not produce "newsworthy" events I sure that several of us would agree.
First, thanks for your support of IPN. While we cover quite a bit here in San Diego, there are certainly some missed calls. As the admin of this outstanding web site (pandering just a bit here) pointed out in a previous message, covering everything would require a paid staff, which you can't/won't get for $8 a month!
Further, despite the best coordination efforts by the collaborative media agencies in San Diego, getting all the public safety agencies to report in on a single medium is not going to happen. Believe me, we've tried.
I would also caution you against trying to intercept and decode public safety pager transmissions (or any pager transmissions for that matter). Federal law prohibits such activity, and I believe it is now a federal felony if you are caught doing so. Just a helpful tip.