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Fire Service Manual Volume 1 Fire Service Technology, Equipment

1. Personal Set Personal Set Communications and Mobilising 93 Control tions of range imposed by location and environ ment With more than two units it may well be the case that unit B can communicate perfectly with both unit A and unit C whereas units A and C cannot communicate directly at all When switched to a single frequency channel a personal radio transmits and receives on the same radio frequency and when used without the aid of any control station equipment has the following limitations i Its effective direct range between individuals is seriously affected by the screening phe nomena Therefore the general range and performance must be expected to vary con stantly as the individuals move about ii It is not possible to forecast accurately what the performance will be in any particular building or other environment and it does not follow that because good results are obtained in one building similar results will necessarily be achieved in a nearby and similar building To summarise performance can be expected to vary from one extreme where screening is severe and when communication even over very short distances is unreliable to the other extreme where there is little or no screening good communication over several miles is not uncommon Figure 10 13 2 illustrates the use of a control set using single frequency equipment Provided the 94 Fire Service Manual Figure 10 14 Do
2. Isle of Man Be Bis North Yorkshire a E e Lr nS 1 ee i l i a ae ancashire gt a oe ee ae Humberside an i Fi Taam f i Sf Merseyside d ot ae a A i eee a at ye I 2 i Pe 7 E FA ha F b cir a a a pe Tig he a q ee a Pe os j EAN f North Wales j AL a y Pui oe ae PS aS w Yie i M i La Ei r s apie rt f Ke Fi Pia Ww a a soe LEMS a Gt a sl iy ae lt nates act Mid amp ni Fe TY m West Wales Hereford amp p R Tes _ Worcester TE 5 i 3 j Fiaa mE mus iat g i i am TAN ail F j r South Wales 7 da E AL La ot ains e for Wiican x von i A te Lay ma Mobilisin A ah ae p i d A MN g L Somerset Aa Systems an ns a h ___ West oussex a Fi PL a if ant pt he al i oss N Isle of Wight Figure 5 1 Mobilising Systems used by Brigades June 1998 Previ Communications and Mobilising 43 revious page is blank All Fire Services now use computerised mobilis ing systems to support the call taking and mobilis ing procedures These systems comprise several main elements Integrated Voice Communication Switch Computerised Mobilising System Communications Interface Bearers Station End Equipment Integrated within the mobilising system are other optional features which aid the control staff for example resource displays mapping systems and automatic vehicle location sys
3. Thus it is a practical proposition to design an handheld radio terminal which can be used with safety in a potentially hazardous environment Le explosion protected equipment Explosion protect ed terminal equipment nearly always exists as well in a normal un protected form In comparison with the non protected terminal equipment the protected equipment will often have a reduced maximum transmitter power be more expensive to procure and maintain will require special batter ies and may have reduced functionality The selection of protected types of handheld radio is also likely to be much less than un protected types and purchasers may have a limited choice of equipment from which to select equipment for pro curement 15 4 Intrinsically Safe Design Criteria The requirement for explosion protected equip ment certified for use in flammable or explosive dusts gases or vapours means that the equipment must be incapable of causing ignition even under fault conditions or when subjected to gross mis handling This necessitates design features which often have performance penalties in normal condi tions It is usually necessary for example to make it impossible for batteries to be fitted or removed within the hazard area because of the potential danger of sparking during this process Therefore it is usual for the battery compartment of such equipment to be fitted with a key operated lock so that compartment can b
4. Where an EACC has connection directly to a PTO for an Emergency Call Service Priority Fault Repair Service will be extended to all 999 112 cir cuits in accordance with the relevant condition of the PTO s licence This is Condition 9 of the Cable amp Wireless licence and Condition 10 of the BT licence The BT Priority Fault Repair Service will apply where BT and Cable amp Wireless use common ter minations supplied by BT 4 1 9 BT National Emergency Linkline The National Emergency Linkline is a service designed to give nominated customers a quick and easy means of contacting BT to request assistance during emergency situations Nominated customers are primarily the Emer gency Services and Local Government as they would normally be responsible for co ordinating emergency incidents However the service can be made available to Health Authorities the Armed Forces and those public utilities that are likely to play a significant role in major emergencies This service has been specifically set up for use in the event of Civil Emergencies and major disas ters It is NOT for normal business enquiries BT s modern digital technology uses a flexible call routing tool known as Advanced Linkline Services This facility can direct calls from a special nation al telephone number to one or more pre selected answering points The National Emergency Linkline number dialled from anywhere in the UK connects the caller to the nearest
5. Global Positioning System Navigation system developed by the United States Defence Department as a world wide navigation and position resource for both military and civilian use It is based on a constellation of twenty four satellites orbiting the earth at a height of over 20 000 kilometres These satellites provide accurate three dimensional position and velocity as well as precise time and act as reference points from which receivers on the ground triangulate their position Global Systems for Mobile communications European standard for digi tal cellular networks operating at 900 MHz world wide and supporting data transmission Government Telephone Preference Scheme A predefined exchange of signals or control characters between two devices that sets up the conditions for data transfer or transmission Measurement of frequency where one Hertz equals one cycle per second Or Main Stationsare normally on high open ground hence the alterna tive name from which it is possible to see in the radio context a con siderable portion of the brigade area Main equipment operates in an omni directional mode to cover the largest possible geographical area Home Office Frequency Management Group Integrated Communications Control System Incident Control Unit International Maritime Satellite Organisation Communications and Mobilising 123 Interface IS ISDN KiloStream LAN Leakv feeder Link Transmitters
6. The main elements are A means for transmitting signals from the protected premises to a remote manned centre RMC such as a Brigade Control Centre or a Central Alarm Station and where the RMC is a Central Alarm Station the processing of signals at the Central Alarm Station A means of communication between the Central Alarm Station and the Brigade Control Centre No matter how comprehensive and efficient an auto matic fire detection system may be its task is not fully completed until it has informed those responsi ble for taking appropriate action that there is a fire in the building Therefore if the purpose of the system is to protect property there will need to be an effi cient and reliable method of transmitting fire signals automatically to a remote manned centre unless there is a very reliable means of on site monitoring e g at a permanently manned security gate house If the fire detection system is intended to satisfy the fire insurer this will normally be a requirement Such a system will also be required in premises where rapid fire brigade attendance is a pre requi site of life safety e g hospitals unless the fire alarm system is monitored at all times at a fully manned location Where an automatic transmission system is pro vided it should transmit a signal to the RMC as soon as the automatic fire alarm system operates In exceptional circumstances a time delay unit TDU may be provided to pe
7. personal set receivers two frequency chan nels are tuned to frequency f a they cannot hear transmissions direct from other personal set transmitters which are tuned to frequency f b Nevertheless this arrangement has advantages over single frequency working especially when there is a need to increase working ranges between individuals This is achieved by a talkthrough facility on the control set for use when it is nec essary to automatically re transmit on the outgoing frequency f a all incoming signals received from personal set transmitters on frequency f b When the talk through facility is off the control set operator will hear and be able to communicate with all personal set users within range but per sonal set users will not be able to hear each other There is no reason why the control set should not be switched to talk through on the two frequency channel and left unattended when the requirement is for good communication between personal set users All six channels may be used simultaneously at the same incident without mutual interference The talk through facility provides considerably enhanced range between personal sets above that obtainable with single frequency working because of the greater performance of the vehicle mounted or portable set and its aerials It is customary to designate the direction from con trol as outgoing and the dire
8. Alarm Stations can also offer other methods of transmission that are not approved Although the LPCB are responsible for the approval scheme it is operated jointly by the LPCB and its sister organisation NACOSS The National Approval Council for Security Systems and inspection of Central Alarm Stations is carried out by NACOSS The LPCB publish a list of Central Alarm Stations that have been approved under LPS 1020 This list indicates for each Central Alarm Station the geo graphic areas from which the Central Alarm Station is approved to receive fire alarm signals This pro vides confidence to the user that there is third party verification that the Central Alarm Station com plies with good practice that there is an agreement with the relevant fire brigades and that there is suit able means for passing fire calls to them CACFOA and the British Fire Protection Systems Association BFPSA have developed a Model Agreement relating to AFD systems con nected to Brigade Control Centres via commer cial Central Alarm Stations The Model Agreement would be between the Local Fire Authority and the Central Alarm Station Brigades should make use of the Home Office CACFOA BFPSA document entitled Avoiding Unwanted False Alarms Generated by Automatic Fire Detection Systems as issued in DCOL 6 96 in Scotland as DFM 8 1996 In general the requirements of LPS 1020 are incorporated within BS 5979 One of these requirements is
9. Channels are selected using a numerical key pad and the illumi nated display will show the channel number entered Channel numbers 21 and 22 are allocated for working both with man pack VHF radio equip ment and directly between vehicles fitted with suitable radio equipment 10 3 5 Squelch All mobile radios operating at VHF and UHF have an automatic squelch or mute which com pletely switches off the receiver output to the loud speaker and earpiece when no transmission is being received The squelch is necessary to sup press the noise which would otherwise be heard in the absence of a signal The receiver automatically opens up when a signal of sufficient strength to over ride the noise and give an intelligible output is received An incorrect setting of squelch levels aimed at reducing unwanted noise could mean that very weak operational signals will not open up the receiver 10 3 6 Transmission Timer To avoid the risk of the transmitter being perma nently locked on transmit due to a faulty handset pressel switch or the handset falling into a position where the switch is jammed on the transmitter is fitted with an automatic transmission timer A jammed on transmitter would block the complete radio scheme and being simplex the receiver would be inactive so that no signals could be received The transmission timer automatically switches off the transmitter after about 30 seconds continuous operation Normal tr
10. all of which used land lines These mobilising systems were very reliable but rather slow the method used to communicate with the station or stations required was the human voice and all turn out instructions with additional infor mation if necessary were repeated Mobilising was accomplished by checking the pre determined 20 Fire Service Manual attendance PDA card for the parish or street to determine which appliance s to send before alert ing the station s These cards were kept in large bins in the control room and if the brigade used street mobilising there were many hundreds of cards Operators prided themselves on their topographi cal knowledge and remembering the attendance for many areas or special risks only using the PDA cards for confirmation Fire calls were recorded by hand on individual incident forms and in some cases the old log book was still run ning At this time nationally control staff personnel were a mishmash of backgrounds and experience Control was thought to be the easy option and many operators were firemen who were on the run down to retirement or sick and on light duties Some brigades started to employ women because they couldn t get men to work shift work for the low rate of pay Others of course had long estab lished specialised personnel The developing use of computers generally in the 1970 s inevitably led to thoughts of computerised mobilising To have finger tip contro
11. drawal of outgoing telephone services from the majority of customers on a telephone exchange The scheme is designed for use in a serious crisis when increased use of the telephone network is causing severe congestion and preventing the emergency ser vices and other essential users from making and receiving calls At present the scheme only applies to BT and Cable and Wireless Lines that have their outgoing service withdrawn under the scheme will retain the capability of receiving incoming calls Normal service will be restored to all customers as soon as possible Rules for the selection of lines for inclusion in the scheme have been set by Government These rules and other information about the scheme are con tained in a Government Notice The GTPS can only be invoked by the govern ment in exceptional circumstances However the facilities it provides can be used by BT or Cable and Wireless as part of their network man agement arrangements if their network is heavily overloaded or damaged The scheme only operates over PSTN lines There is no charge for this service All exchange connections are placed in three categories consists of those lines essential to Government and the emergency authorities in a severe crisis or emergency which is affecting the public telephone network Category 1 Communications and Mobilising 29 includes lines additional to Category 1 that are required to maintain the life of a community
12. equipping staffing and keeping an alternative control centre in being solely for the use in the event of a breakdown at the main control The general practice has there fore been for the fire authority to invest available financial resources in a highly reliable communi cations system and in safeguarding the central con trol to the maximum possible extent These safe guards normally include Diversified communications bearers Standby power facilities which automatically come into operation immediately in the event of failure of mains electricity supplies Adequate fire precaution arrangements e g smoke detectors in communications appara tus rooms and also in plant rooms and roof spaces which are normally unattended and are a potential risk Finally there should always be predetermined and practiced last ditch arrangements including the use of radio and of pre arranged telephone contacts At fire stations there should be an emer gency un interrupted power supply UPS to maintain computer and turn out equipment It is essential for Control Centres to have an un interrupted power supply and emergency power generator facilities 5 2 3 Provision of Suitable Circuits The mobilising scheme should not rely totally upon access to the public telephone network since this may become congested due either to peak nor mal usage or to the direct effect of a flood of emer gency calls to a large incident Whils
13. to the hospital medical staff so that they can initi ate whatever checks they might think necessary to detect and rectify any effect that the transmission might have had In this context many modern radio terminals for example data capable radios trunked radios and radios using public cellular or public data services are capable of auto transmission Unless the trans mission function can be inhibited by the user such equipment should be switched off if it is necessary to take it into a hospital premises Where a hospital has placed a restriction on the public use of cellular radios then these restrictions should also be taken as applying to handportable radio terminals or any public cellular radio terminals that may be used by firefighters 15 10 Radio Use within Silos The presence of a radio may cause ignition of any flammable dust gas or vapour that exists in a silo There is also a remote possibility that a transmis sion from a handheld explosion protected intrinsi cally safe may result in a spark caused by an inducedcurrent Accordingly similar restrictions to those applicable to the use of radio terminals in the vicinity of explosives should apply to the use of radios near or within silos until it has been established by monitoring that there is no trace of a potentially flammable dust gas or vapour within the silo Notwithstanding the foregoing the Officer in Charge may decide to permit the limited us
14. 10 4 Trunked mobile radio systems The growth in mobile radio systems over the years and the subsequent demand for frequencies has placed an ever increasing load on the spectrum managers The concept of Trunked radio schemes goes far in addressing this problem Trunking makes greater use of the available channels but leaves users less aware of the con gestion on that channel Users share a pool of channels and are only allocated a channel when they need to make a call In practice not all users wish to make a call at the same time and trunk ing theory is based on the probability that there will be free channel when required The telephone networks have been using trunking theory for a great many years but it has only recent ly become economically possible in radio systems with the advent of microprocessor circuitry Fundamentally trunked radio systems are engi neered in a similar way to cellular telephony sys tems with coverage being modelled in polygon shaped cells although it is of course possible that area coverage is Satisfied by a single trunked 98 Fire Service Manual basestation A mobile radio will be constantly speaking to its local basestation via a control channel When the mobile wishes to send a message the control channel will allocate a speech channel dynamically and communications will be avail able At the end of the transmission and at each subsequent transmission different channels m
15. 7 by emergency services and other Home Office user radio systems Thus co channel interference on the mobile channels is likely to be from another Police Force or Fire Brigade as applicable The bands used for VHF UHF links are shared by both Police and Fire Brigades and interference could therefore be from either Other users on a radio channel is one of the factors taken into account when assignments are made However during periods of high atmospheric pressure co channel interference from other users at a considerable distance may be experienced due to enhanced radio propagation Emergency service radio schemes are often co sited with other privately operated systems Some of these prime sites are heavily used and there is a consequent high risk of interference between schemes due to the generation of intermodulation products Although steps are taken to avoid assign ing frequencies that may cause interference to existing channels the probability of intermodula tion interference depends largely upon the stan dard of engineering at the site If interference is suspected of being generated from electrical or telecommunications apparatus operated by another user the Radio Investigation Service should be informed The RIS have details of all users at each site and are highly experienced at solving interference problems The RIS do not normally levy a charge if the interference is caused by another user However if the invest
16. An authorised representative of the EA not neces sarily the Authorising Officer must be present when the tapes are being played at an Operator Services Centre BT will only keep original 999 112 recording tapes for a period of 3 months Evidential quality copies can be requested if necessary BT will apply to the Chief Officer of the relevant EA for similar recordings of calls made by the FAs PTO s inform all their customers to use the 999 112 code when making emergency calls PTO s do not tape record emergency calls made on any other circuit However such calls are processed despite the use of the incorrect code 4 1 6 Calling Line Identity CLI Since 1985 BT have been modernising their net work and converting from analogue to digital exchanges This modernisation is almost complete giving 99 CLI coverage which means BT oper ators have instant access to the callers address on 40 million lines Once BT developed CLI for their own operators the emergency services requested an enhancement to 999 services to reduce call handling times and the number of hoax calls Their requirement was an enhancement which would allow the telephone number and address of the caller to be automati cally displayed on the EAs own mobilising com puter screen The advantages of CLI are Caller s number and address automatically available on answer no need for information to be passed verbally or the EA operator to type Reduces typi
17. Some fire stations provide facilities with instruc tions on how to use them to enable members of the public calling personally at the station to sum mon the brigade This type of call is known as a running call Where there is always someone available in the fire station premises a switch usually labelled Fire is sometimes provided on the front of the fire station for use by the public This actuates an alarm within the station which alerts personnel for a turnout and summons a firefighter to the front doors to obtain particulars from the caller At fire stations where there is not always someone available on the premises e g a day staffed or retained station where all personnel attached to the station turn out on the fire appliances there is usu ally a special telephone at the front of the fire sta tion for use by running callers This telephone suitably illuminated and labelled with instructions may sometimes be an ordinary exchange line with limited dialling facilities to prevent misuse on which the caller may dial 999 112 It could also be a telephone linked to a private wire communications network which when the handset is lifted connects the caller instantly to the appropriate Control Centre In all cases instructions should be displayed on how to use running call facilities and include directions as to what the caller should do if the sys tem is out of order or if for any other reason there
18. Switch 4 H Multi way Socket Carrying Handle Figure 14 1 Home Office Repeater Unit Photo Devon Fire and Rescue Service Sears ae Se a lt ie So te poe m re ri a s ae uf 4 TE a k Figure 14 2 Home Office Repeater Unit Photo Devon Fire and Rescue Service continuous coverage from the surface to beyond the second base station The team can then proceed further into the risk area deploying further cables and base stations as necessary Each base station would transmit a unique identity tone A technical disadvantage of this method of deploy ing the equipment is that it does not maximise the range achieved because it ignores the potential additional coverage which can be achieved when a second or subsequent base station is deployed 114 Fire Service Manual Green light indicates Red light indicates repeater switched on Stub Aerial Pa On Off Switch Audio Cable connected I Carrying Handle to repeater Figure 14 3 Home Office Repeater Unit Photo Devon Fire and Rescue Service Figure 14 4 Sonic UHF UHF Repeater Unit Photo Devon Fire ami Rescue Service 1 e the second base station once connected and activated will provide its own coverage area Using this method of deployment coverage will overlap that already achieved from the first base station There is also the possibility of quasi syn chronous interference beats The foregoing arrangements can be impr
19. amp Associates Typetalk Vodafone Communications and Mobilising 135 The Stationery Office Published by The Stationery Office and available from The Publications Centre mail telephone and fax orders only PO Box 276 London SW8 5DT General enquiries 0171 873 0011 Telephone orders 0171 873 9090 Fax orders 0171 873 8200 The Stationery Office Bookshops 123 Kingsway London WC2B 6PQ 0171 242 6393 Fax 0171 242 6394 68 69 Bull Street Birmingham B4 6AD 01212369696 Fax 0121 236 9699 33 Wine Street Bristol BS1 2BO 01179264306 Fax 0117 9294515 9 21 Princess Street Manchester M60 8AS 01618347201 Fax 0161 833 0634 16 Arthur Street Belfast BT1 4GD 01232238451 Fax 01232 235401 The Stationery Office Oriel Bookshop The Friary Cardiff CF1 4AA 01222395548 Fax 01222 384347 71 Lothian Road Edinburgh EH39AZ 01312284181 Fax0131 6227017 The Stationery Office s Accredited Agents see Yellow Pages and through good booksellers 15 ISBN 0 11 341185 5
20. amp Wireless network are routed by the short est possible route to one of five dedicated switch es for Operator Services traffic located around the country These switches form a complete resilient fully networked five node system for routing traf fic to the Operators The system has full 24 hour support and queues have Real Time Management Information Systems to ensure all calls are answered immediately The system is configured to give these calls priority over all other traffic on the Cable amp Wireless network The emergency operators in the Birmingham call centres connect callers to the Emergency Service For reasons of cost and speed the call will route over the Cable amp Wireless network emerging if necessary onto the BT network at the nearest Point Of Interconnect to the Emergency Authority At no time are BT 999 operators involved in Cable amp Wireless 999 procedures only BT s local network where required by the Emergency Services own telephone network 4 2 1 Operator call handling procedure When a directly connected One2One or Cable cus tomer dials 999 112 an Emergency call attempt will be recorded within the call centre by means of an audible and visual signal The call is immediate ly given the highest priority The operator holds any existing call on the console and answers the emer gency call Emergency which service please Simultaneously the operator will have received a display of the calli
21. any BT exchange that fails to give customers 999 access commences when a regional Network Operations Unit NOU detects a failure that causes loss of 999 access Once the extent of the problem is known a report of the failure is faxed to each 28 Fire Service Manual appropriate EA Control Centre Police Fire Ambulance and Coastguard In addition the Network Operations Unit draws attention to the fax by telephoning the Police control which in turn telephones the other affected EAs If neces sary progress reports are faxed at periodic inter vals and finally a fault clearance report is sent once 999 access has been restored The process includes the provision by BT to the EAs of maps showing the area covered by each of its exchanges EAs and relevant PTOs should prepare local contingency arrangements to cover the receipt of emergency calls during conditions of serious breakdown in the PTO network 4 1 8 Priority Fault Repair Service The conditions in the PTO s licence requires them to provide a free Priority Fault Repair Service to those emergency authorities who receive 999 112 calls on lines connected to the PTO s network When notified of any fault or failure which causes interruption sus pension or restriction of the telecommunication ser vices provided by the PTO the PTO will restore those services as swiftly as practicable and with a priority so far as is reasonably practical over Fault Repair Services to other persons
22. are mobile or not While theoretically this is possible current AVL systems have not been designed to meet this requirement and it is not easily achieved The difficulties in achieving this principal objec tive arise from the errors in the data that will be used in the calculation of the nearest appliance list These errors derive from Inaccuracies in the incident location Inaccuracies in the reported positions of each mobile appliance Inaccuracies in computing for each appli ance the running time from its present posi tion to the incident location As with the existing PDA system the acceptable level of inaccuracy will vary according to risk and the associated standards of fire cover In areas where parish or area mobilising is used the largest source of error will invariably come from the incident location In urban and high risk areas where street and premises locations are held in the gazetteer the inaccuracies in the reported vehicle positions will be the more significant It should therefore be left to the brigade to spec ify the accuracy required from the AVL system and for the supplier to establish whether such an accuracy can be achieved and at what cost It is difficult to set an expectation of what can be reasonably achieved However as a guide it is reasonable to expect the computed running times in the list of nearest appliances to be accurate to within 90 seconds The Pilot System sho
23. available to a brigade and required by the fire fighters grows almost exponentially the Control Centre is seen increasingly as the most suitable repository and distributor of this data It is now an essential requirement that this information can be easily retrieved through the mobilising workstation either for review by control or for dispatching to a fire station or incident ground This has led to the introduction of commercially available computer software to support these func tions Much of this information is held in graphi cal or geographical form Graphical Information Systems GIS allow mapping data to be manipu lated and presented to the Control Centre operator The maps can also be linked to the mobilising sys tem so that when a database search matches the address criteria the correct map showing the address location is displayed to the operator These GIS s are able to interact with other soft ware such as word processors and graphical pre sentation technology so that composite packages of information can be developed Maps of a Fire Service s area can be presented with facilities to zoom from small scale to large scale presentations As these maps are composed as a series of layers it is possible to select the level at which certain fea tures are displayed e g text can be displayed only when it is possible to read it Overlays can be added to give details of hydrants and water mains Figure 5 6 Graphical Inf
24. be set up to generate traffic which tests the bearer at regular intervals The timing of these test signals is set on installation and can be determined by the brigade 5 2 6 Exchange Telephone Lines Exchange telephone lines are commonly used in Control Centres and terminate either on telephone instruments telephone switchboards line concen trator units or a digital switch linked to a touch sensitive screen Some are earmarked for exclu sive operational use whilst others are for adminis trative purposes The common tendency is for the operational cir cuits to be terminated on line concentrator units or a digital switch and the administrative circuits to be terminated on a PABX switch so that calls may be connected to extensions throughout the organi zation A PABX or private branch exchange is a semi automatic switchboard that allows the major ity of connections via the PABX to be dialled direct by the extension users and also may allow external callers to directly dial the extension The function of the switchboard operator is then main ly confined to answering calls on the main switch board numbers where the caller is unaware of the extension number or answering queries from callers on the internal extensions 5 2 7 Operational Lines Where a number of exchange lines serve a Control Centre it is usual for them to be ex directory under which arrangement the numbers are not disclosed to the public It is advisable to
25. call out and Incident Command structures The text diagrams and sym bols used whilst not necessarily conforming to those in other technical publications have been modified as appropriate to assist the reader Those who require further technical detail must refer to other publications and technical sources which specialise in the area concerned It is anticipated that this book will be invaluable to brigade Communications Officers and all person nel who are or become intimately involved in the planning procurement implementation and opera tion of mobilising systems communications sys tems radio and fixed and mobile communications As in Book 10 of the Manual of Firemanship a great deal of emphasis has been placed upon plan ning principles and the importance of clearly iden tifying both the operational requirements and the constraints associated with procurement processes New technology solutions can be both implement ed and beneficial if as a result of a due planning process they address and meet the needs and cri teria of the user New technology should not however be seen as the driving force and the rea son to change for changes sake This is especially so in areas where an overall simpler solution could be adopted instead It is hoped that the information and advice con tained within this book will help to ensure that the Fire Services Communications and associated Communications and Mobilising HI sys
26. change of each tour of duty the firefighters insert their tallies onto the nominal roll board of the appliance they are crewing The nominal roll board of the appliance also has a bar code detailing sta tion call sign and appliance type In the event of a large incident the Incident Command Unit is mobilised and all appliance and personnel tallies are handed in to the Unit Each bar code is then swiped by an infra red pen to store the information on a personal computer PC The bar code contains the following information Name rank station and watch Medical details blood group allergies tetanus injections etc Exposure to toxic substances Qualifications LGV BA wearer etc Other skills which may include foreign lan guages plumber electrician etc Officer s car registration number At any point during the incident the PC is able to provide a printout of all personnel in attendance on the Fireground This information could be used in the event of an evacuation It could also be used to determine relief crews and provide information to personnel in attendance should there be a chemical incident with potential long term effects Fire Service requirements are fairly basic at present but full integration with other avail able computer systems could provide an effec tive management tool 70 Fire Service Manual Communications and Mobilising Chapter 9 CCTV in Most Fire Service
27. characteristics the size of the aerials and the power required Frequencies KHz 30 100 300 1000 3000 KHz GHz 1 3 10 30 MHz 1 3 10 30 100 300 1000 3000 Low Medium High Very High Ultra High Super High BandNames Frequencies Frequencies Frequencies Frequencies Frequencies Frequencies Long Waves Medium Short Waves Short Waves UHF SHF LW Waves MW SW VSW Wavelength 1000 3000 1000 300 100 30 10 3 1 0 03 0 1 0 03 0 01 metres CMS 100 30 10 3 1cm Figure 10 3 Divisions of the radio spectrum Communications and Mobilising a Consider the size of the aerial It is common knowledge that for receiving the size of the aeri al is not very important indeed the vast majority of transistor radio receivers operate very well with no visible aerial at all The aerial is a coil wound round a magnetic rod ferrite aerial However for transmitters the position is totally different for effective transmission an external aerial is essen tial and its length must be carefully matched to the wavelength being transmitted For the type of aer ial fitted on vehicles the correct length is almost precisely one quarter of the wavelength e g at 30 MHz wavelength 10 metres this would be 2 5 metres For higher frequencies it is shorter but for lower frequencies it is longer From that and Figure 10 3 it can be seen that cur rently only two parts of the radio frequency spec trum are suitab
28. companies and franchises the collec tive term used is the Railway Industry The rail way industry has it s own telephone network the Extension Trunk Dialling network ETD operated by RACAL BR Telecommunications Ltd RBRT 34 Fire Service Manual The ETD network is almost exclusively used by rail way personnel although in some circumstances possibly an emergency situation it could be used members of the public Dialling 999 112 from this network connects the caller to an RBRT Operator not to a BT Operator Assistance Centre To avoid any confusion all RBRT phones are clearly marked An Emergency Call is defined as a call from any source concerning an incident for which the caller requests the assistance of any of the Emergency Services Emergency calls will only be answered by RBRT Operators who are trained and certified as competent to do so all emergency calls will take priority over any other call and acted upon even if it is a repeat call There are currently five designated Switchboards which would normally receive emergency calls these are at Crewe Glasgow London Waterloo Swindon and York Emergency calls from any part of the country could be received at any of the designated Switchboards The operator begins by asking which service the caller requires and the location of the incident Location details are entered into the Telephone Operators Directory System TODS which will show the primary and secondary c
29. control rooms which because County Councils were also respon sible for the ambulance service were sometimes shared with ambulance personnel Unfortunately whilst World War Two had pro duced some well managed and equipped fire con trol rooms up and down the country under the NFS these were thought to be too elaborate for county brigades and were dispensed with Mobilising was still carried out by the duty watchroom attendant who would take call details dispatch the first attendance and if necessary ITITI e a _ gt k iz ah _ Figure 3 3 London Fire Brigade Control Room 1937 Figure 3 4 London Fire Brigade Wireless Photo LondonFireBrigade Control Room at HQ Photo London Fire Brigade Figure 3 5 AFS Fire Women in Watch Room Figure 3 6 GPO Telephone Exchange late 1960s Photo Kent Fire Brigade Note red lightbulb for 999 calls Photo Hertfordshire Fire and Rescue Service Figure 3 7 Kent Fire Brigade Control Room 1960 Figure3 8 Control Room using VF System A 1980 Photo Kent Fire Brigade Photo Kent Fire Brigade Communications and Mobilising 19 pass the call to a divisional or district control It was the duty of the watchroom attendant to record all fire calls as well as officer and appliance movements in the log book In fact everything was meticulously recorded usually in beautiful handwriting In some cases Kent for instance B
30. could also alert mobile phones which are active in selected cells and possibly even send text messages to mobiles using the short message service SMS Act upon the response Acknowledgement of the message is requested by use of the telephone key pad or by speech recognition The system will pro vide a continuous update on acknowledged calls engaged tone no answer answering fax machines calls which have been answered but not acknowl edged etc As an additional feature the message and a list of telephone numbers may be sent to the Speech Application Platform for delivery by BT This enables numbers which are held on a database but not geographically clustered to be called by BT Public Warning by Telephone Systems enable calls to be made very quickly to any selected area anywhere in the county and enables positive con firmation of receipt of the warning These systems are more suitable for modern localised threats and would not be suitable for alerting millions of peo ple as would be required under war conditions Communications and Mobilising 4 Communications Chapter and Mobilising Chapter 5 Control Centre equipment _ British Aerospace er es a C Dopra E Fortek ca a ae weg a Hoskyns Dopra f Ske a a I Hoskyns Hermes d oes ee o Grampian ea Marconi r af i Islands ag y Remsdaq PA pe C Syseca Ai alg 7 Tayside F Other amp k oe ee Cumbria E ken
31. date record of the location and availability of appliances equipment and officers on standby for immediate turnout This display is used primarily for ensuring that the resources of a predetermined first attendance are in fact available for despatching when an emergency call is received It is also used as an aid to the Officer in Charge of the Control Centre when con sidering covering moves to maintain an equal distribution of fire cover throughout the area dur ing periods of intense activity Fire situation information throughout the mobilis ing area at any time must also be displayed and this must be kept up to date and in step with the mobilising moves The fire situation display would normally show the address of the incident the appliances and officers attending whether or not a stop message has been received and very brief information likely to be needed by Control Centre staff or senior officers The types of display used for these purposes vary a great deal in different brigades The general prac tice in the past has been to use a combined gener al purpose and appliances availability wall map with separate boards marked out for recording fire situation details In such cases the map will indi cate every available appliance by means of tallies or coloured lamps It 1s common to find separate officer availability boards which indicate where 52 Fire Service Manual an officer is and whether available by radio p
32. during civil emergency Category 2 covers the remaining lines not enti tled to special preference during an emergency Category 3 All Government departments have a designated authority to nominate for inclusion in Categories 1 and 2 this process is known as sponsoring Sponsors are required to notify BT or Cable and Wireless annually of the lines they wish to nominate for inclusion in JTPS The GTPS administration is handled by BT and Cable and Wireless Emergency Planning Managers 4 1 11 Secondary Control As well as providing PTO s with secondary and alternative numbers Fire Brigades should have alternative arrangements to cover the receipt of emergency fire calls during conditions of serious breakdown either in BT s network or their own brigade communications systems These arrangements usually involve a secondary control set up either in a different building on the same site or at a different location Consideration also has to be given to the receipt of calls during the interim period EAs should make use of auto matic call diversion facilities where possible Managers of Control Centres which normally receive emergency fire calls should run exercises periodically to ensure that all staff are familiar with the contingency arrangements 4 1 12 Publicity Public Education The Public Telecommunications Operators and the Emergency Services continue to be actively involved in various education programmes aimed at
33. equipment is designed when correctly used and maintained to operate safely even if it develops a fault Personal radios certified to BS 5501 Part 7 or European Standard ENS50 020 for Category ib Group HC and Temperature Class T4 provide the minimum stan dard that should be used The harmonised stan dard CENELEC Eex ib IC T4 is often referred to and equally valid See DCOL 8 95 Item A in Scotland DFM 6 1995 item A Each user should satisfy themselves that this equipment is suitable for use at incidents in their area If in any doubt about the suitability or use of their equipment then H M Fire Service Inspectorate should be consulted 96 Fire Service Manual 10 3 16 B A Radio Communications Interfaces Fire Service Circular 3 75 recommended that all future purchases of B A should comply with BS 4667 and should be covered by a Certificate of Assurance C of A issued in accordance with the Joint Testing memorandum From 1 January 1990 under COSHH Regulations BA equipment has to be suitable for its intended use and approved by the HSE It will be certificat ed under HSE Testing Memorandum No 3 TM3 New CEN standards will apply when they become available Any fitting must have the prior approval of the manufacturer who as the holder of the C of A can ensure that if any amendment to the C of A is required it will be HSE approved 10 3 17 Disadvantages of use of radio with B A Firefighters should particu
34. essential actions The system will automatically present another call when the lapsed time is reached Alternatively in cases where a number of actions are required a manual option to suspend the operator from the system is available This system is more likely to be used in larger brigades and has recently been installed in London 5 3 Computerising Mobilising System Clearly the primary Control Centre tasks of inci dent logging and resource availability are team activities which require all operators to have access to the same information 48 Fire Service Manual A variety of mobilising systems are available to brigades and may be known as either Computer Aided Mobilising Systems Command and Control Systems or Mobilising and Communications Systems All these systems are as the name sug gests systems which incorporate computers to aid the reception and logging of calls and the despatch of the brigades resources to incidents The incident and resource information recorded on the mobilising system is of interest to a number of departments outside of the Control Centre e g sta tistics Press Officer etc Much of the information required by control may be prepared or maintained by other departments and hence database update facilities must be made available to these depart ments An operator or supervisor s workstation will have a visual display unit VDU a keyboard and often a mouse to provide access to the mo
35. facsimile and pager messages at the rate of approximately 1600 calls an hour using 30 outgoing telephone lines and two facsimile machines on each line Kingston technology is scaleable and a system can be designed to accommodate any requirement Whichever telephone warning system is used it will almost certainly be backed up with warnings issued through the media Following a BT feasibility study competed in 1997 a National Steering Committee has been set up to investigate the possible options of using the national PSTN network for civil disaster warn ings The steering committee includes representa tives from Central and Local Government Police Fire and industry mainly petro chemical compa nies aS well as consultants from the telecommu nications industry A trial of public warning systems by telephone is expected to go live in Cleveland during 1998 This is an area with a large concentration of petro chem ical industries and although the trial could cost 40 Fire Service Manual over 1 million this would only be a small propor tion of the compensation costs of a local disaster Public warning by telephone is very new and unless each recipient pre registers gives rise to a number of the regulatory and data protection issues These have now been addressed and OFTEL s view is that unsolicited automated calls may be used for emergency messages e g where there is threat to public safety or their property T
36. home station and sometimes mobile were calculated to be nearer than the appliance in whose station ground the incident had occurred Furthermore in busy periods it is conceivable that appliances will get drawn across the brigade area on the basis of being the nearest available appli ance in a sequence of incidents into areas with which they are not familiar and for which they may not carry appropriate information With current resource deployment and mobilising policies AVL data will be of relevance for approx imately 20 of emergency calls 1 e when mobile appliances are considered for mobilising Through the use of AVL data it is possible to move appliances to standby points other than fire sta tions while still being able to identify the nearest appliances to respond to new incidents Such a pol icy Operated in a limited form in one brigade has already shown savings by reducing the need to turn out retained fire stations 7 5 Implementation Costs The infrastructure requirements i e the need to provide a two way mobile data network of a GPS based AVL system are such that it would be whol ly uneconomic to consider setting up a system solely for AVL For both operational and eco nomic reasons a brigade should consider the introduction of IPS based AVL only as part of a programme to introduce mobile data If mobile data can be justified in its own right then the incremental cost of introducing AVL will be relativ
37. in commercial premises In rural areas private telephones were scarce and public telephones were not as plentiful or well sit uated as they are today and there were no Street fire alarms The firemen in rural brigades were usually part timers who would rely on being called by a knocker up or by the sirens that were installed during the First World War These sirens were still in use well into the 1970s With war approaching the government mounted a recruitment campaign to encourage men and women to join the Auxiliary Fire Service AFS Women were encouraged to join as drivers or to work in fire stations doing office work or watch room duties Some women opted for motorcycle training and driving lessons while the majority learned watchroom procedures and the vital process of mobilising appliances They all had basic firefighting training The AFS became the National Fire Service approximately one year after the war started It was reformed in 1947 to run until the mid sixties One of the difficulties of forming a large number of small brigades into a National Fire Service was that most of the equipment hose couplings pump deliveries and appliances etc were all different This caused obvious problems when one brigade was called to assist another There was a desperate need for standardisation All emergency calls were received at the local General Post Office GPO Telephone exchange at this time telephone exchanges
38. is entered onto the screen Communications and Mobilising 25 The operator hands the call over by passing the Operator Assistance Centre OAC name and the caller s number and listens while the caller passes their location If this has been given clearly and the call is progressing the call will be held in the oper ator s system without listening until the call is complete Operators normally listen throughout in difficult cases for example panicking callers or where there is a language problem If it is necessary to speak to the BT operator again it should be possible to call them back onto the line while the call is being listened to At this stage of the call there are two options to speak to the BT operator 1 Operators can normally see when the caller and the EACC have cleared If the EACC has the necessary facilities it is possible for EA operators to cause the word Flash to appear on the BT screen 2 The operator may be alerted by failure to clear the line although this may take some time if the operator is dealing with another call If details of the call are required once the call has been released it will be necessary to dial the Operator Assistance Centre number allocated to each Brigade The allocated number should be used even if the call was passed via a different OAC Every emergency call is recorded both on magnet ic tape and on a call printout which shows basic call details such as time telephone n
39. is no response If facilities are not provided notices should be displayed informing the caller of the location of the nearest public telephone 56 Fire Service Manual 5 5 11 Enquiry Bell It is common practice for continuously staffed sta tions to have an enquiry bell circuit installed with a press button labelled Enquiries at the main entrance to the station Operation of the button actuates a bell or buzzer in the station The enquiry bell is normally intended for non urgent enquiries only 5 5 12 Other Ancillary Equipment With the introduction of modern systems virtually any piece of equipment can be operated on the actuation of the station alerting systems Such examples are the switching off of cookers kettles and other electrical equipment Communications and Mobilising Chapter Chapter 6 Automatic Fire Alarm Transmission Systems The purpose of automatic fire detection equipment is to give early warning of fire It 1s essential that automatic fire alarm calls should be transmitted to Fire Service Control Centres as quickly and reli ably as possible There are many different types of automatic fire detection devices and systems installed within buildings to detect one or more of the characteris tic phenomena of fire heat smoke or flame and actuate alarm devices or systems Arrangements for linking automatic fire detec tion systems with a brigade Control Centre or a commercial Central Alarm Station
40. of Control Personnel The Fire Service Appointments and Promotion Regulations SI 1991 369 do not apply to person nel who are recruited specifically for control cen tre work At present standards for appointments and promotion for these staff are matters for indi vidual fire authorities On applying for a position as a Fire Control Operator prospective recruits are Communications and Mobilising 131 APPENDIX 1 continued generally required to pass an elementary educa tional test set by the fire authority If successful the candidate will attend an interview followed by a medical examination Promotion is by selection with most local fire authorities establishing their own standards and promotion examinations for the purpose Career development prospects for control personnel are necessarily limited because they are employed in relatively small numbers To determine the qualities needed as to the suit ability for promotion to higher ranks prospective members of staff should receive personal develop ment training This training is normally carried out by individual fire authorities or centrally at the Fire Service College as part of a national syllabus for the more senior posts Standards of Competence A Strategic Document on Standards of Competence for Control Centre Staff was issued to Brigades in October 1997 Standards of Competence were produced by a steering group comprising of experienced control personnel and d
41. only covered a Communications and Mobilising 17 l Ei aa THE NATIONAL FIRE SERVICI ULL TIME OR PART TIME MEMBER You can train to be a telephonist despatch rid driver canteen worker and for many other duti APPLY FOR PARTICULARS TO NEAREST FIRE STATION OR EMPLOYMENT EXCHA Figures 3 1 and 3 2 Posters used during a recruiting campaign in World War II small area and there were a great number of them and passed to the Wholetime fire station in that area where a Watchroom was continuously manned either by a firemen firewomen or a com bination of both After the Second World War communication was still a laborious and lengthy process Watchrooms or Control Rooms in various brigades evolved dif ferently some were staffed by firemen who had a rota for Watchroom duties while others were staffed by firewomen who had served in the National Fire Service Many of these women stayed on after the war to become the forerunners of today s control operators In 1947 the Fire Services Act was passed to make further provision for fire services in Great Britain to transfer fire fighting functions from the 18 Fire Service Manual National Fire Service to fire brigades maintained by the councils of counties With brigades under the auspices of the County Councils the long process of standardisation of all equipment contin ued This included the amalgamation of some fire station watchrooms into divisional
42. part of the sys tem such as an address gazetteer pre determined attendances risks special procedures and CHEM DATA information It also records the status of appliances and officers and will not offer resources that are already committed to other incidents It must be stressed that the system only makes recommendations which can be overridden by the operator The mobilising system also main tains a log for each incident recording all the actions associated with that incident Other logs are also maintained recording other aspects of the system not related to incidents such as communi cation failures operators logging in and out of the system tests etc Once the mobilising system has been used to set up and verify the incident details and proposed resources to attend the turnout instructions must be conveyed to the appropriate fire stations and the crews alerted The system will encode the data and deliver it to the communications network for onward transmission to the appropriate destination including automatic data recovery In most instances the communications network will comprise of a primary secondary and possibly a tertiary back up bearer The primary bearer will be the most appropriate bearer for the station tak Typical Operator Position Communications Console Mobilising Workstation 4 dale amie ing into account the number of calls and other facilities required as well as available technology Seco
43. policies procedures and standards give effective support and guidance to Watch personnel in career development give effective support to the Watch Officer and undertake watch reference administration duties which may include the following Command and Control budgets Training records schedules and infor mation Statistics Supplies Central Risk Register database Officers should have a working knowledge of the following good leadership practices in relation to the supervision of personnel and support of man agement the financial implications of management decisions made at watch level the financial implications of management decisions made at Control level and theoretical and practical aspects of personnel motivation and welfare Watch Refresher Training In addition to the basic core skills training all Control Personnel should undergo continuous on watch refresher training This training will be car ried out on a systematic basis both scheduled and monitored The subject matter will depend on local circumstances with emphasis being placed on little used procedures Familiarisation Training Control Personnel returning from absence through sickness injury or maternity leave of three months or more should undertake familiarisation training to update them on Brigade procedures and to ensure the individual s competence in carrying out the core tasks Appointment and Promotion
44. staff will be familiar with the type of Closed Circuit Television CCTV used for monitoring premises for security purposes either in shops car parks or used to survey headquarters remote fire stations or even Control Centres especially at night Some years ago the Fire Service recognised the benefits of capitalising on the technical develop ments of video cameras and their ability to trans mit images by a variety of means having the potential to provide the Service with new tools to improve the efficiency of rescue and assist with the command role at incidents These objectives as well as the secondary but important benefits of improving debriefs identifying training needs and informing the public accurately led them to explore ways of using this equipment effectively on the fireground Because firefighters need to know as much as possi ble about the emergencies and the dangers they may be facing the best substitute for seeing something directly is to have real time video of the same thing Visual information of this kind does not add to information overload in the way that manuals plans and procedural documents do Irrespective of whether the incident involves a collapsed build ing with casualties a dog lost in a warren or a huge fire that can only seen from one side there are ben efits in providing vision using available technolo gy which would otherwise be difficult dangerous or impossible to obtain The use of
45. that may be adversely affected by radio transmissions This section deals in some detail with the technical aspects of terminal equipment to be used in poten tially flammable dusts gases or vapours It con cludes by giving operational advice and guidance on precautions to be taken by firefighters when using radio transmitters in potentially flammable or explosive atmospheres and use of radio in the vicinity of explosives petrol stations and medical devices 15 1 Explosion Protection Standards In the European Union ELI standards for electri cal equipment designed for use in flammable gases and vapours are those approved by the European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardisation CENELEC Such equipment may be certified as meeting the relevant standard by an EU approved Certification Body The relevant EU standards for Intrinsic Safety are drawn from EN50 014 EN50 020 and EN50 039 Terminal equipment in current use in the fire ser vice may have been manufactured to comply with an earlier standard e g British Standard 1259 1958 or a BASEFFA standard SFA 3012 1972 This equipment can continue to be used until replaced Outside the EU other standards exist In particular in the USA and those parts of the world where US standards prevail equipment is certified to stan dards specified by either Underwriters Labaratories or Factory Mutual Research Corporation For the UK fire service the recommended standard for ge
46. the PTOs networks Alternative In the event of a major problem which results in the primary and secondary routes to an EACC being unavailable to the PTOs the EA should provide the PTOs with an alternative means of taking delivery of the call ideally at a different EACC for maximum security To provide adequate security this alternative number must be served by a different net work route from that providing the primary and secondary routes EAs would have to consider where appropriate which EA Control Centres are used as alternatives to each other These routes are agreed between the EA and the BT Emergencies Services Manager Changes arranged by EAs have to be notified directly to the ESM giving at least two weeks notice All the routes have to be staffed on a 24 hour basis When a PTO operator answers an emergency call that has originated from a digital exchange the full national calling line identity number CLI will be automatically displayed on the operator s VDU 7 BT Operator Centre Don Service May 97 Figure 4 2 BT emergency call handling system Diagram BT This removes the necessity for an engineering trace to identify the calling line if the caller is unable to provide this information The CLI number uses a different mechanism to BT s Caller Display and Call Return 1471 ser vice The number cannot be altered or withheld by the caller Prior to all the PTOs completing their digital net
47. the boundary area each of which will have advised the PTO of primary secondary alternative and evacuation EACC con nect to numbers On receiving a cellphone 999 112 call the BT Operator s console displays the caller s number CLI and a zone code which identifies the origi nating base station A list of EACC connect to numbers corresponding with the zone code is automatically displayed for selection by the Operator 4 8 6 Cell ID Look Up Failure Failure to display an EACC connect to number on receipt of cell I D zone code information is extremely unlikely However should this occur the Mobile Operator will tell the cellphone caller that there is a network fault and that some information checking will be necessary Orange will locate the origin of the call by determining the cell ID using its inherent network facilities Once the cell ID is provided the Mobile Operator will refer to a look up table and forward the call to the corresponding EACC This call tracing facility can only be car ried out if the calling cellphone holds the connec tion Post event traces are not possible but records are kept by Orange which include time of call duration originating cellphone number and the cell which received the call These records are kept and available for cross checking for approximate ly three months 4 8 7 EACC Connect to Numbers The EAs should aim to provide at least two weeks notice of changes to primary secondary alter
48. the features and facili ties of a standard mobile except public address The biggest demand on the battery is during trans mit and a compromise must be made between the transmitter power and the acceptable size and weight of the battery Of necessity the transmitter power is about half that of a standard mobile but in all other respects the performance is identical Figure 10 12 Hand held radio in use Photo Hertfordshire Fire amp Rescue Service 10 3 11 Personal Equipment Personal equipment is small enough to be carried in the hand or pocket or in a suitable lightweight body harness Its small size means miniature con struction techniques which create problem in the receiver but which do create difficulties in the transmitter The battery size is severely limited and those two factors restrict the transmitter power to a fraction of what is obtainable from transportable equipment normally approximately 1 watt in the majority of equipment This coupled with the restricted aerial dimensions and efficiency limits the range of the transmitter section The receiver performance will be comparable to that of a trans portable under similar conditions Personal equipment can operate in either the VHF or the UHF band but VHF equipment other than in the single frequency mode would normally be expected to transmit into the main scheme hill top sites VHF equipment is perfectly satisfactory on a single frequency b
49. the fire station These facilities do not however cater for the rare possibility of having to evacuate the main control centre Systems have been developed which per mit restoration of basic turn out facilities from other locations Different mobilising systems provide different secondary control provisions ranging from a portable laptop computer containing the basic mobilising system and communications interface to a duplicate control on the same site as the main control or at a remote location Secondary control facilities should be provided with facilities for the reception of emergency and other incoming and outgoing calls the despatch of resources and the operation of the main scheme radio at a location that would not be affected by any disruption to services provided at the main control This may necessitate locating the secondary control with emergency telephone lines from a different exchange to those of the main control 5 4 7 Control Centre Software With the advent of mobilising equipment based on PCs and the proliferation of computer systems in the workplace Control Centres now have commer cially available software packages for their use These systems may reside on PCs that are also used for mobilising or on stand alone machines These packages generally include Word processors for producing text e g aides memoires help files and specific instructions which can imported into other systems including the mob
50. the main VHF radio scheme via the hill top sites and the linking system The outstanding feature of two frequency working is that the mobiles can only hear Control they can not hear each other unless the control operator has engaged talk through Direct mobile to mobile communication is possible with talk through engaged but that ties up the whole of the main scheme The control operator may wish to moni tor the messages but all other mobiles are unnec essarily involved To provide greater flexibility the standard mobile radio will have one or two single frequency chan nels usually channels 21 22 and any two or more mobiles switched to one of those channels will be able to communicate directly and totally inde pendently of the main scheme within a very lim ited geographical area The size of the area will be almost entirely determined by the intervening ter rain and is likely to be severely restricted in heav ily built up areas It is of course necessary to pre arrange the switch to the single frequency channel It is even more impor tant to switch back to the normal two frequency channel because there is no way in which Control can contact a mobile switched to the single frequen cy channel Under normal circumstances permis sion will be requested from Control before a mobile switches to Channels 21 and 22 The fixed mobile can also operate on Channels 21 and 22 for direct emergen
51. to handle emergency calls Kingston Communications pass calls to Humberside Fire Brigade using the primary sec ondary or alternative numbers 4 4 Telephone Number Portability Telephone number portability means that sub scribers can keep their existing number when they change phone companies Portability was proposed by OFTEL to eliminate the problems and expense mainly for business customers of changing a phone number when changing from one licensed operator to another Agreed procedures between the Emergency Services and the PTOs before number portability trials on the fixed networks took place ensure that customer addresses are always available for use on emergency calls during the transfer Licence modifications are now proposed for the mobile networks this means that from January Ist 1999 portability will be extended to mobile phones The ability to obtain customer record information on mobile networks will become almost impossible Portability will be between mobile and mobile or fixed and fixed networks There will not be con vergence between the two systems for the foresee able future 4 5 Emergency Text Telephone Service for the deaf Typetalk DCOL 6 1995 DFM 5 1995 The Director General s OFTEL Advisory Committee on Telecommunications for Disabled and Elderly People DIED advised that all involved in the 999 service should take account of the need to establish uniform access to the emer gency ser
52. via the entry door lock Members of staff are able therefore only to gain entry to sites that have been pre programmed through the Central database to allow their access bach site also has an internal data terminal through which all persons entering are required to swipe their card The data relating to entry and exist is transmitted either in real time or batched to the Central Processor Unit CPU for analysis This terminal in effect logs personnel as in attendance at that sta tion where they will remain until logging out External and internal card readers at a site are linked and the CPU will be aware of someone gaining access to the site without logging in Appliances officers stand by crews and ancillary staff that require access to stations at any time are issued with an all stations entry card All attendees are required to log out thus giving accurate timing of retained crews for payment purposes Each terminal is fully configurable from the CPU which means that after installation and commis sioning only maintenance visits should be neces sary by the supplier If a card is lost or damaged it Communications and Mobilising 69 can be rendered void removing any risk of access by the finder b Another brigade uses bar coding in a differ ent way Each member of the Brigade including the Chief Fire Officer and Control Staff are issued with their own personal tally and bar code At the
53. video equip ment allows Fire Service personnel to achieve this Information may need to be relayed to a Strategic Tactical or Functional Command or the Control Centre Without doubt Officers want good quality information about major incidents for debrief training enquiries and public relations Cameras Chapter the Fire Service can be provided in small robust units and the transmission and recording methods available adapted to meet fire service needs A number of brigades have been awarded test and development licences by the Home Office to assess the operational potential to transmit audio and visual colour pictures within an incident environment Microwave spectrum is used because a wide bandwidth is required to transmit moving colour images For example one brigade concentrated on getting visual information from confined spaces such as collapsed buildings or sewers and used video to improve effectiveness of command at major inci dents Another brigade uses two separate systems which enhance their CCTV applications one has a Microwave transmitter Camera and the other is a Cellsend System A Bodyworn Microwave trans mitter Camera System is also used These systems are described below The Modular Remote Control Rapid Deployment Camera System MAVIS is a remote controlled camera sending high quality vision and sound to a control unit operating either in the ICLJ or being fully portable from a forward p
54. 11 10 3 12 10 3 13 10 3 14 10 3 15 Frequency Spectrum characteristics selection and allocation The Frequency Spectrum Characteristics of the different Frequency Bands Frequency Selection and Allocation Channel Spacing Radio Scheme Engineering Modulation methods Talk through Wide Area Coverage The Spaced Carrier System The Quasi Synchronous or Common Frequency System Scheme Engineering Links Frequencies Equipment Fixed Mobiles Main Control Transportable Equipment Power Supply Arrangements Microwave Multiplexing Mobile Transportable and Personal Radio Equipment Conventions Mobile Equipment The Aerial Channel Selection Squelch Transmission Timer Power Supplies Fixed Mobile Version Special Features Transportable Equipment Personal Equipment Methods of using Personal Radios Composite Units Personal Hand Held Radio Sets Intrinsically Safe Personal Radios Communications and Mobilising 63 64 66 66 67 67 68 69 71 75 735 75 77 78 79 79 79 81 82 82 82 83 83 84 85 86 86 87 87 87 88 89 89 89 90 90 90 90 91 91 91 92 93 93 95 96 96 Vil 10 3 16 B A Radio Communications Interfaces 10 3 17 Disadvantages of use of radio with B A 10 3 18 User Discipline 10 3 19 Security 10 3 20 Care of Hand Held Radio Equipment 10 4 Trunked mobile radio systems Chapter 11 Radio Alerting System 11 1 Alerter General Description 11 2 Encoder 113 Transmitter 11 4 Alerters Chapt
55. 3 The Gazetteer 5 4 4 Maps 5 4 5 Automatic Fire Alarm AFA Terminations 5 4 6 Secondary Control Facilities 5 4 7 Control Centre Software 5 5 Equipment at Fire Stations 5 5 1 Mobilising Computer 5 5 2 Printers 3 5 Alerter Base Station 5 5 4 Public Address System 5 5 5 Turnout Lighting 5 5 6 Alternative Power Supply 5 5 7 Exhaust Extraction Systems 5 5 8 Control of Traffic Signals 5 5 9 Automatic Appliance Room Door 5 5 10 Running Call Facilities 5 5 11 Enquiry Bell 5 5 12 Other Ancillary Equipment Chapter 6 Automatic Fire Alarm Transmission Systems 6 1 Transmission Methods and Reliability Issues 6 2 Social and Community Alarms Centres vi Fire Service Manual 37 37 38 38 38 39 39 40 43 44 44 44 44 45 45 45 46 46 46 48 48 48 51 51 52 52 53 53 54 54 54 54 54 54 54 55 55 55 55 56 56 56 56 57 57 60 Chapter 7 Automatic Vehicle Location Systems 7 1 1 2 7 3 7 4 7 5 7 6 AVLS Technology Potential Benefits of AVLS to the Fire Service AVLS System Implementation Operational Considerations Implementation Costs Conclusions Chapter 8 Smart and Swipe Cards Chapter 9 CCTY in the Fire Service Chapter 10 Radio 10 1 10 1 1 10 1 2 10 1 3 10 1 4 10 2 10 2 1 10 2 2 10 2 3 10 2 4 10 2 5 10 2 6 10 2 7 10 2 8 10 2 9 10 2 10 10 2 11 10 2 12 10 2 13 10 2 14 10 2 15 10 3 10 3 1 10 3 2 10 3 3 10 3 4 10 3 5 10 3 6 10 3 7 10 3 8 10 3 9 10 3 10 10 3
56. 5 and by accepted Service Procedures Ensure compliance with current Health and Safety Legislation including Display Screen Regulations 1992 Comply with the Brigade s Equal Opportunities Policy and other relevant legis lation at all times Undertake control watch administration duties as required Leading Fire Control Operator Duties mirror those of a Fire Control Operator with the addition of supervisory duties Assist and support other officers and be responsible to the Watch Officer in respect of the day to day management of the Control centre and development of personnel Deputise for a Senior Fire Control Operator in their absence Assume duties as Watch Officer in the absence of a Senior Fire Control Operator and or Fire Control Officer subject to Brigade requirements and suitability of the Leading Fire Control Operator Participate in the design programming run ning and monitoring of training programmes Provide support and guidance to probationary Fire Control Operators and personnel prepar ing for examinations Be familiar with the general command princi ples necessary to undertake the variety of other such tasks and duties as may be required to meet the needs of the Brigade Senior Fire Control Operator The tasks listed below may be the responsibility of a L FCOp in Brigades that have S FCOp s as Watch Officers In addition to the L FCOp duties Take charge of Command and Control ac
57. 989 the main and mobile trans mitters use amplitude modulation AM Whereas in schemes provided and maintained by commer cial suppliers they may use both AM and FM depending upon a brigade s stated need to commu nicate with any adjacent AM brigades Simplex and Duplex The two terms can be taken as a pair Within the context of emergency services radio simplex working is that while transmitting sending it is EI _ Aerial Aerial relay Transmitter MAIN CONTROL SO Fire Service Manual not possible to receive so the person receiving cannot interrupt Any attempt to do so means nei ther person hears anything A vital part of sim plex operating procedure is the use of the word over The speaker must say the word before switching from transmit to receive and the lis tener must hear the word before switching from receive to transmit All equipment normally rests in the receive mode and operation of a press to speak key sometimes known as a pressel switch switches the equipment from receive to send The key or switch must be released before transmissions from other stations can be received Simplex working makes it impossible to speak and listen simultaneously but it has the advantages of encouraging a concise and efficient operating procedure and an economy in the use of words and of discouraging lengthy conversations Further the equipment
58. A mobilising control possibly in another fire brigade area to which in an emergency the functions of receiving emergency calls and mobilising appliances are passed in the event of an evacuation of the normal mobilising control A communication technique in which it is not possible to transmit and receive simultaneously A scheme using one common frequency for transmitting and receiving by all stations Short Message Service A switch is the core element of a radio or telephone system It provides control management and the routing of voice and or data calls between radio system infrastructure mobiles and portables telephones controllers and computer terminals A facility on two frequency radio schemes which interconnects incoming and outgoing channels Used to enable out stations on a scheme to hear and talk to each other A means of establishing measurement remotely A device for sending and or receiving data on a communication channel Telephone Operator s Directory System Total Operations Processing System A portable transmitter receiver of roughly the same power as a mobile set Text User s Emergency Service A means of operation whereby radios receive on one frequency and trans mit on a different frequency also known as double frequency peration A radio installation which allows boosted signals of double frequency operation with UHF equipment This equipment is usually provided as a mobile version but exceptio
59. Channels can be saved and made other wise available if a single outgoing link transmitter is used and its output is split between two or more aerials each pointing at a main station There is then only one outgoing link frequency but there must always be independent incoming link fre quencies and link equipment At each main station the link transmitters and receivers are interfaced with the main transmitters so that for example a signal from control is 1 Transmitted by the link transmitter at the con trol station 2 Received by the link receivers at all the main Stations 3 Re transmitted by all the main transmitters 4 Received by the mobile receivers A similar sequence in the opposite direction occurs when a mobile transmits to control In general the above descriptions refer to the use of VHF High Band linking Some brigades also deploy onward linking at UHF However in recent years there has been a move towards vacating both Communications and Mobilising 83 VHF and UHF linking in favour of microwave or 10 2 8 Frequencies land line links RFCPU have issued policy state ments addressing this subject see section on It is of interest to add up the number of frequencies Microwave which are permanently needed in multi station f b f a f b t a L 3 Mobile station 412 ee ey Main station B Main station A f b f a i j UE aah ae Brigade H Q Ke main control Mobile sta
60. Emergency Linkline reception point normally the local BT Network Operations Unit The NOU will ensure that a request for assistance is handled promptly and that all necessary parts of BT are alerted The service is available 24 hours a day When requesting assistance a caller must identify themself and the organisation that they represent and provide a telephone number on which they or another representative can be contacted They should give as much detail about the incident as possible to enable BT to react quickly The information should include Accurate location e g address grid reference Casualty situation e g is an enquiry bureau being set up Access problems e g difficult terrain or parking restrictions On site security e g will BT identity cards suffice Reporting instructions e g who should BT people report to Communication needs e g requirements at the scene incident control Safety issues e g are there any hazardous conditions to consider The National Emergency Linkline number must not be disclosed outside the organisation This will ensure the service is not abused by unau thorised users To get more information including the National Emergency Linkline number contact the local BT Zone Emergency Manager 4 1 10 Government Telephone Preference Scheme The Government Telephone Preference Scheme GTPS provides a contingency facility for the with
61. G4 Alerter Unit Interface to Station Equipment 5 5 6 Alternative Power Supply Mobilising equipment should be provided with alternative power facilities for use when the nor mal power supply fails The types of system can vary but in most cases consist of an uninterrupted power supply UPS That is a bank of batteries that are continually being charged to supply power in the event of a failure These are connected to the mobilising computer by a data link and will inform the control room of both the failing of and restora tion of normal power 5 5 7 Exhaust Extraction Systems A number of brigades utilise exhaust extraction systems to remove exhaust fumes from the appli ance bay These are normally actuated by the turnout system and will remain on for a set period of time They can also be reset manually 5 5 8 Control of Traffic Signals In large towns and cities provision can sometimes be made for traffic signals in the vicinity of the fire station to be operated by the mobilising computer or from the watchroom to stop traffic and give fire appliances a clear exit from the station Communications and Mobilising 55 5 5 9 Automatic Appliance Room Door Electrically operated appliance room doors are provided on some fire stations In addition to hav ing manual controls and built in safeguards these will be linked so that they can operate concurrent ly with the station alerting systems 5 5 10 Running Call Facilities
62. Home Office organises and supports meetings of the 999 Liaison Committee a forum which brings together representatives of the Emergency Authorities EAs Police Fire Ambulance and Coastguard the Public Telecommunication Operators PTOs fixed and mobile and other 2 Fire Service Manual organisations with an interest in the 999 service These include HM Fire Service Inspectorate The Scottish Office OFTEL and the Department of Trade and Industry The Committee which meets twice a year under the chairmanship of the Home Office discusses issues and matters arising from the provision of the 999 public emergency call service The Committee encourages liaison between the EAs and PTOs at a more local level and considers what mechanism might be introduced to resolve disputes between the EAs and PTOs It has also introduced Codes of Practice and Memorandums of Understanding covering such issues as methods of handling 999 emergency calls on the fixed and mobile telephone networks The 999 Liaison Committee was responsible for producing the Strategic Framework for Combating Malicious Hoax 999 Calls issued as DCOL 9 96 in Scotland as DFM 8 1996 Any problems which need to be resolved are pro gressed through a spirit of co operation and good will between the relevant parties the 999 Liaison Committee has no statutory powers or authority The Joint Strategy Committee on Operational Practices and Technology receives regular up
63. Issued under the authority of the Home Office Fire and Emergency Planning Directorate Fire Service Technology Equipment and Media Communications and Mobilising HM Fire Service Inspectorate Publications Section London The Stationery Office Crown Copyright 1998 Published with the permission of the Home Office on behalf of the Controller of Her Majesty s Stationery Office Applications for reproduction should be made in writing to The Copyright Unit Her Majesty s Stationery Office St Clements House 2 16 Colegate Norwich NR3 1BQ ISBNO 11 3411855 Cover photographs Upper Surrey Fire and Rescue Service Lower London Fire Brigade Half title page photograph Hertfordshire Fire and Rescue Service Printed in the United Kingdom for The Stationery Office J50973 7 98 C50 5673 Communications and Mobilising Preface The first edition Part 5 of the Manual of Firemanship dealing with the subject of communi cations was issued in 1954 It concluded Fire Service communications are intimately related to an intricate field of electrical engineering which includes telecommunications both by landline and wireless which is in turn only a small part of the territory covered by electrical science The passage of time and advances in technology have changed every concept of fire service com munications from those identified by the writers within the first edition of Part 5 The basic fire ser vices communications requi
64. LINE INTERFACES _ Operator Duplicated Servers l Continuous i Recorder tm Radio pm PSTN PABX Private Circuits Figure 5 2 Architecture of typical Integrated Communications Control System ICCS Graphic Securicor information Systems Many are Integrated Communications Control Systems ICCS which incorporate both telephony and radio functions Figure 5 3 A touch screen in use in a Control Centre Photo Simoco Different levels of access are available for opera tors supervisors and maintenance staff Operator access to the system is by means of a touch screen colour which displays coloured representa tions of press buttons When touched the system responds and begins a series of operations relat ed directly to the selected button to provide full control and status displays of all radio and tele phone functions Most switches are capable of queuing incoming calls and if necessary present the operator with the oldest call first This is especially useful during spate conditions when emergency calls may be waiting on the system The high speed local area network interconnects operator positions and the central switch This net work broadcasts simultaneous updates to all posi tions and whilst performing particular functions the operator is able to call up information from the system s database including relevant help mes sages and telephone directories In addition each operator
65. Main scheme radio Main Control Main Transmitters Mobiles MIS MMC Modem Multi station scheme NOU 124 Fire Service Manual A shared boundary a physical point of demarcation between two devices where the electrical signals connectors timing and handshaking are defined The procedures codes and protocols that enable two entities to interact for the meaningful exchange of information Intrinsically Safe Equipment designed to be operated safely in an environ ment consisting of flammable or explosive dusts gases or vapours Integrated Services Digital Network An internationally agreed public network offering switched end to end digital services for voice and data The registered trademark for BT s digital network services used for connecting a variety of high speed applications including computers LAN interconnect and switchboards Local Area Network is one which spans a limited geographical area usually within one building or site and interconnects a variety of computers and terminals usually at very high data rates A linear aerial which radiates radio signals throughout its length Such an aerial is particularly suited to facilitating radio communications in sub surface premises in conjunction with a UHF base station And Link Receiversprovide communication between the control station and the main stations Link equipment operates in a Point To Point mode in which every effort is made to send s
66. This component of the Alerter carries out the fol lowing basic functions Provides two way communication using MG4 protocol with the station GD92 Comms equipment 100 Fire Service Manual Figure 11 2 MG4 Alerter Transmitter combined with a GD 92 compliant Station end mobilising terminal Generates required team fire or test call using POCSAG paging protocol See Alerters Up to 3 teams and the combinations of such are catered for Generate paging calls with alpha numeric messaging if required for individual calls Control the sending of calls via the transmit ter and the monitoring of transmitter parame ters during calls See Transmitter Record the operation of team off air moni tor receivers to determine the transmission of correct call data Assemble the monitored transmitter parame ters and the off air receiver status and pro duce a message indicating a successful or failed call and send this to the station GD92 Comms unit for onward transmission to con trol If the call is a failure the type of failure is also returned Provide a considerable degree of configuration in order to be able to replace a faulty encoder at a station with the minimum of delay Where stations may overlap from the point of alerting coverage provision is made for cop ing with simultaneous mobilisation of the two stations It should be noted that although individual manu factures have to
67. Waves LW 30 300 kHz 10 000 1000 metres Follow earth s curvature Not screened by moun tains etc Consistent long range both by day and by night Requires very high transmitter powers and very big aerials The top end of the band is widely used for broadcasting Medium Frequencies MF or Medium Waves MW 300 3000 kHz 1000 100 metres Longer ranges by night than by day Rapidly varying effects at sunrise and sunset Requires high transmitter powers and big aerials Widely used for broadcasting Ship shore radio marine navigational aids etc High Frequencies HF or Short Waves SW 3 30 MHz 100 10 metres Short range over ground but reflection from upper atmosphere gives very long range both by day and by night with very little power Vulnerable to atmospheric disturbances sunspots etc Frequency changes needed every few hours to maintain continuous communication Widely used for long range communication Very High Frequencies VHF or Very Short Waves 30 300 MHz 10 1 metre Screening and reflection by hills large buildings etc becomes noticeable gradually approaching visible light characteristics giving significance to line of sight Generally short range over ground 20 miles 30 km average almost wholly depen dent on upon line of sight 1e height of aerial Fairly constant results both by day and by night but vulnerable to long range interference during abnormal weather conditions Ideal for two way l
68. able 4 8 Cellular 999 services The cellular operators 999 112 call service is based on six northern Operator Assistance Centres OACs BT handles all 999 112 phone traffic for Cellnet Vodafone and Orange One2One emer gency traffic is handled by Cable amp Wireless Communications and Mobilising 35 Cellular network companies found several prob lems that had not been experienced to such a degree with the fixed networks To help over come these problems a Code of Practice was devised under the auspices of the Home Office 999 liaison Committee The Public Emergency Call Service PECS for Mobile Radio 999 Emergency Access When a 999 112 call is generated on the cellular network it is received by the base station provid ing the strongest signal generally this will be the nearest cell site to the location of the caller However because the transmission is radio sev eral conditions may influence where the signal travels to 1 e local topography poorly positioned aerials on vehicles or weather conditions Also the fact that cellular frequencies travel exception ally well across water add to the contributing factors The incoming call will be transferred to the fixed network providers through their OAC s and pre sented to the Operator by means of a 4 digit zone code Zones roughly mirror county boundaries and are used to direct the call to the correct emergency authority The zone code accesses the OAC s data base and
69. able for each resource and hence the opportunity exists to deploy resources to more accurately reflect the needs of the risk areas and their corresponding standards of fire cover Until recently the only parameter available for defining location in the preparation of incident sta tistics and analysis has been station ground This situation has improved slightly in those brigades where the streets and places gazetteer includes a grid reference which can be filed with the incident log and used in subsequent analysis 66 Fire Service Manual AVL fitted appliances booked in attendance would also be reporting their exact position and hence the position of the incident Further information such as the position of the appliance when it booked mobile to incident could also be saved for future response time analysis 7 3 AVL System Implementation AVL systems have been implemented in many commercial organisations and other emergency services within and outside of the U K An investi gation into the performance of a number of these systems and the experience gained from the Pilot System installed in Avon Fire Brigade has high lighted features which will compromise the effec tiveness of AVL in the Fire Service the more sig nificant of which are discussed below Most fire brigades see the main benefit of an AVL system as being the ability to identify and despatch the nearest quickest appliances to an incident regardless of whether they
70. adio problems and offer a paid diagnostic service to commercial and domestic radio users The RIS inspects all Police and Fire Service radio installations as part of their work This is to ensure compliance with the conditions of the radio licence The RIS has indicated that it will contact users beforehand to arrange a convenient date and time for the inspection Role of the Home Office in Frequency Regulations and Management The Home Office Scottish Office in Scotland participates in national frequency management in the United Kingdom and is accountable to the Cabinet Office These departments also provide representation through the RA in international fre quency management fora The maintenance of inter operability between indi vidual users is a major operational requirement of both the Police and the Fire Service This has a sig nificant influence on radio scheme engineering and spectrum planning Where an individual force or brigade propose changes to their radio schemes that are likely to affect the level of current inter operability the department takes advice from national user representatives before granting the necessary assignments Policy and Regulation The Home Office Frequency Management Group assigns frequencies to its user services to meet specified operational requirements Wherever pos sible this takes account of national and interna tional frequency management policies Home Office policy is promulga
71. ager or telephone contact When an appliance or officer leaves their station whether it be to an incident for drill or other pur poses the appropriate tally or lamp is deleted from the availability board or map and shown either on the fire situation display board in the case of an incident or in an appropriate section of the mobil ising board where provision is made to record appliances and or officers which are not immedi ately available for operational use With the advent of computerised mobilising sys tems the display of information from fire situation displays appliance or officer lists to PDAs and incident logs has become the norm at each operator position The introduction of graphical information systems GIS has enabled displays similar in appearance to those presented by the traditional lamp system to be reproduced electronically These resource availability displays for both appliances and officers are driven from the changes in status of the resources held in the mobilising system data base These displays can be presented at each oper ating position on a VDU and also projected on to a wall display either from the front or the rear 5 4 3 The Gazetteer To receive and validate details of an emergency an operator relies on a comprehensive gazetteer of streets and special locations and or premises All mobilising systems will utilise a gazetteer to vali date the location of an incident so clearly the speed an
72. agnetic spectrum With the exception of vis ible light the boundaries of the various forms are not sharp and there is considerable overlap Our interest is with the radio wave portion extend ing slightly into the micro wave portion and that is expanded in Figure 10 3 with the corresponding wavelengths added Radio waves occupy a wide range of frequencies with the maximum being several million times larg er than the minimum This contrasts with the very narrow range occupied by visible light in which the maximum is only about twice the minimum Frequencies too high to express in 3 30 300 3000 GHz RADIO units The result is that whereas the various colour com ponents of white light normally all behave in the same way the lowest range of radio frequencies e g below 100 kHz will behave quite differently from the highest range e g above 1 GHz This leads to the radio frequency spectrum being divided into relatively small frequency bands within each of which all frequencies behave in much the same way and are therefore suited to a particular purpose Since every frequency has a unique corresponding wavelength the different fre quency bands correspond to different wave bands 10 1 2 Characteristics of the different Frequency Bands Figure 10 3 shows in very broad terms how the different frequency bands wavebands differ with particular reference to the way they travel through space their propagation
73. als MPT plus a number to indicate their specification documents Communications and Mobilising 5 required from the Civil Aviation Authority CAA for equipment used in aircraft Radio call signs The Home Office RFCPU is responsible for the allocation of call signs to all fire brigade radio schemes The detailed allocation of identifying suffix letters and or figures to individual units mobiles etc is arranged locally The call signs for all police and fire brigade radio schemes start with M2 followed by two letters which identify the particular radio scheme e g M2FH The use of call signs and radio operating procedures gen erally are dealt with in the Fire Service Training Manual The basic call sign of a fire brigade is shown on the brigade radio licence Home Office Frequency Management Group The Home Office Frequency Management Group HOFMG is part of the Radio Frequency and Communications Planning Unit RFCPU The Scottish Office regulates frequencies for Scotland The main functions of the Frequency Management Group are as follows Regulation and management of the frequency bands allocated for Home Office user ser vices in accordance with national and inter national policies Assignment of frequencies to meet specific user requirements in the Home Office bands at HF VHF UHF and SHF Preparation and maintenance of licence schedules for Home Office user services and maintenance of a databa
74. and mobile schemes due to relatively short aeri als and moderate power requirements Ultra High Frequencies UHF or Ultra Short Waves 300 3000 MHz 1 0 1 metre Broadly similar to VHF but closer still to visible light characteristics Screening and reflection more noticeable but less long range interference Shorter range over ground but line of sight even more significant Lower part of the band is ideal for two way hand held personal radio schemes due to very short but efficient aerials and low power requirements Figure 10 4 Characteristics of different frequency bands In the United Kingdom control of the frequency spectrum is vested in an inter departmental com mittee comprising representatives of all Government departments with responsibility for frequency using services These include the Radiocommunications Agency of the Department of Trade and Industry the Home Office and the Ministry of Defence See the section on Regulatory Issues 10 1 4 Channel Spacing It is not possible to convey information by using just a single frequency A narrow band of frequen cies is required which is known as a Channel Different channel widths are required for different services for example a television video channel must be many times wider than a speech channel Channels are normally known by their centre fre quencies and the centre frequencies of adjacent channels must be separated by at least the required channel widt
75. ansmissions rarely last that long but if necessary the pressel switch is simply released and pressed again to continue transmitting The 30 seconds time out applies to Home Office supplied mobile radio equipment However similar principles but possibly with actual different time outs will normally apply to all transceiver equipment 10 3 7 Power Supplies The standard mobile radio is designed to operate from the standard 12 volt DC vehicle battery source Connection is made between the transmit ter receiver unit and the vehicle battery via a heavy duty two wire cable with a suitable fuse in the non chassis usually positive wire the fusehold er being as close to the battery terminal as possi ble The use of two wires avoiding earth return through the vehicle chassis helps with equipment compatibility by reducing the risk of mutual interference with vehicle electronic systems No problem arises in standard 12 volt vehicles but many larger vehicles and fire appliances have 24 volt electrical systems Radios can be built to work off 24 volts but it is not economic to have two standards so 24 volt vehicles are fitted with 12 volt radios There are two ways in which this can be done 1 By battery tapping The 24 volts is normal ly provided by two 12 volt batteries in series so the radio can be connected across the lower one the one with one terminal to chassis This works reasonably well altho
76. approximately 21 million calls each year including 2 million mobile 999 s and calls from cable networks Cable amp Wireless formerly Mercury take 2 8 million including mobile and cable company calls whilst Kingston Communication handles 200 000 calls Requests for police help account for some 55 per cent of emergency calls while the ambulance service accounts for 33 per cent and the fire brigades for the majority of the remaining 12 per cent Some 50 per cent of all 999 calls are false calls where callers make no request for an EA and are safely filtered by BT and Cable amp Wireless operators at the request of the EAs using agreed procedures 4 1 1 The British Telecom fixed telephone system There are fifteen BT Operator Assistance Centres OAC these are at Aldershot Aylesbury Bangor Belfast Blackburn Bristol Cambridge Glasgow Hastings Inverness Leicester Newcastle Newport Thanet and Warrington Previous page is blank Figure 4 1 A BT Operator Assistance Centre Photo BT The trunk reservation facility will be used to ensure that there will always be at least two cir cuits reserved for 999 112 calls on a route from a digital local exchange More importantly howev er this facility allows an additional circuit to be reserved for a 999 112 call each time an existing circuit is taken into use for a 999 112 call All of the circuits in a route are thus potentially avail able for emergency use This giv
77. asis to other personal trans portable or mobile units over short ranges but in general UHF offers better performance for person al radios The use of FM offers advantages for per sonal radios if only because it permits greater transmitter power to be obtained from a given size of battery and all UHF personal radios used with in the fire service operate on FM Figure 10 13 1 Single frequency personal set usage 2 Single frequency personal sets with a control set Personal Set Set 10 3 12 Methods of using Personal Radios Personal set communication can be organised in a number of different ways to meet various opera tional needs which in broad terms break down into the following categories Direct person to person communication on an exclusive single frequency channel over very short distances e g between individuals at an incident or when carrying out dry riser tests or other duties in high rise buildings Similar communication but in which one of the units is mounted in a vehicle Two frequency communication between per sonal sets via a vehicle mounted or portable VHF repeater Two frequency communication between per sonal sets and the brigade control room via a vehicle mounted UHF VHF repeater Single Frequency Operation Figure 10 13 1 involves personal sets only and although only two are shown any number can be used on an all hear all basis subject to the limita
78. ated operator and it can Communications and Mobilising 95 be arranged that when on repeat the two loud speakers are switched off to prevent unauthorised listening in One minor drawback of the repeater is that personal sets are not able to directly com municate with each other the vehicle VHF radio is simplex and its receiver switches off when trans mitting When a personal radio transmits the UHF receiver in the vehicle switches on the VHF trans mitter back to control and the VHF receiver is switched off The UHF transmitter to the personal sets therefore also switches off and they appear to go dead 10 3 14 Personal Hand Held Radio Sets A limited number of frequencies are specially allocated on a national basis for use by fire brigades some in the VHF band and others in the UHF band Fireground communication is presently carried out using the UHF band of fre quencies Personal hand held equipment is nor mally designed to accommodate a minimum of 3 channels However with the allocation of 6 UK wide Fire Service UHF frequencies for their exclusive use and possible additional channels for other purposes there is a need for synthesised multi channel equipment which for a number of years will be used in addition to existing 3 chan nel equipment 10 3 15 Intrinsically Safe Personal Radios Ordinary personal radio equipment is capable in flammable atmospheres of causing explosions or fire Intrinsically safe
79. ation Vodafone Data Network is increasingly being adopted for alarm communications 6 2 Social and Community Alarms Centres Community social alarms are found in the homes of over one million people who are described as vulnerable in the UK Most of those people are elderly and or disabled but there are many other groups including some of those discharged early from hospital Many of the alarms are located in individual dwellings and are connected to a 24 hour Community Alarm Centre CAC via the PSTN telephone A call to a CAC can be triggered by pressing the button on a portable pendant or on the telephone Similar alarms located in sheltered housing schemes for older people are often activated by 60 FireServiceManual pulling a cord During the day most Sheltered alarms are monitored by the resident warden and switched to a CAC when the warden is off duty Calls can also be triggered remotely by sensors in smoke or intruder alarms either in individual homes or in communal areas When an alarm which may relate to a range of sit uations where help is required is actuated either remotely or by a resident an electronic signal is transmitted to the CAC Detailed information about the caller is automatically displayed on the CAC operator s computer screen This information could include vital data on the caller s personal situation including for example medical details Most of the calls received are not emer
80. ation must be made by EAs through BT s Network Special Investigations Group In providing an XD NC service BT undertakes not to give the number to anyone outside BT including EAs BT has laid down procedures to enable urgent calls to be connected to XD NC customers without revealing the number EAs requiring such a connection must contact BT OACs using 100 service where the operator will ask a number of questions to support the request before connecting 4 1 5 Access to tape recordings of Emergency Calls BT will record all calls terminating on 999 112 cir cuits Calls are recorded from the time the call is answered by a BT operator until the EA and caller clear the line and the circuit is released Requests from EAs to listen to to make notes about or be given a copy of a recording of a 999 112 call must be referred to the BT Network Special Investigations Group These requests must be authorised by the agreed level according to the Code of Practice which States Access to emergency call records can be obtained in two forms Normal For investigatory purposes where it is required as evidence or similar use Arrangements for access will be agreed at the time of request Where instant access is required to respond to a 999 incident Current equipment means this would take sever al minutes Urgent The authority levels for access required are Normal Duty Principal Officer Urgent Senior Duty Control Room Officer
81. authorised by RFCPU for use in road tunnels or airports etc However such use is strictly limited according to the stated opera tional requirement when the licence was granted 10 3 13 Composite Units A vehicle with a mobile UHF control unit will usually have a VHF mobile radio fitted and an operator in the vehicle can then communicate with both the personal set users and the brigade control room An added facility is an interface usually in the form of a combined UHF VHF control unit which connects to both transmitter receiver units The equipment collectively is now known as a VHF UHF Repeater Unit and it can be used in three distinct ways 1 Local control of a two frequency UHF net work and VHF communication with brigade HQ but not simultaneously because although the repeater control unit has two loud speak ers it has only one handset which is switched to VHF or UHF as required 2 Talk through between personal set users with the vehicle set unattended or with the vehicle operator solely involved with VHF communication to the Brigade HQ 3 With the vehicle control unit switched to repeat all signals received on VHF are re transmitted on UHF and vice versa so that the epersonal sets all hear brigade HQ just like a mobile or transportable and individual per sonal set users can speak directly back to Brigade HQ In 3 above the vehicle will usually be unattended or at least without a design
82. ay be used Once the transaction is complete these chan nels would then be available for other users Unlike cellular systems which are generally designed to be a one to one service trunked radio schemes can set up user groups in which multiple users will be able to talk Trunked radios permit roaming throughout the area required with handover between radio cells as a mobile passes from one base station area to another The mobile receiver will be constantly hunting for a control channel during this exercise Once a signalling channel is identified the sig nalling information is examined and checked by the mobile and if validated locks the mobile to this channel This process happens automatically and transparently to the user In the UK the MPT 1327 signalling standard is used to facilitate analogue trunked private mobile radio services in Band If 174 225MHz although there is no reason why trunked systems could not operate in different frequency bands Future development in trunked systems is current ly being addressed by ETSI under the remit of the Trans European Trunked RAdio project TETRA which will be a digital TDMA product with an effective bandwidth per voice channel of 6 25KHz giving four time slots possible within the 25KHz bandwidth TETRA will operate for the Emergency Services in the band 380 400MHz and commercially by PAMR service providers in 410 430MHz Communications and Mobilising Cha
83. ays incorporating sim this country More recently Ambulance services ple mapping or full Graphical Information have taken advantage of the technology to enhance Systems GIS their vehicle availability and running times As Fire Service personnel became aware of the Around this time many Fire Services were replacing potential of GIS it became obvious that questions their mobilising and communication systems and about AVLS in relation to the Fire Service would revamping or moving into new Control Centres soon be asked Command Mapping System User Paul Chatterton SUPE RVISOR l p fsa E Fie Mep Whrdaw Help a 126 i 106 Closes Herourcer Fesouce wader Schemes acoder Lace JE P A E Slr is oy ij EEA eap f fF Oe lype Call T me 04 By Pau Hieni HCUSE AAE Reviced THE GROVE Deta FIFE FAST FLOOR re e IMFLIONES _o 2 digiethahi sh bd Gnd Ae F 2h 49 491536 Rlepoagitian Herouces Clore Resouces ra 4 9 picket Gon _ Peron Ca jie eee Figure 7 1 An example ofa screen format using an A V L system Graphic Fortek Previous page Communications and Mobilising 63 is blank HM Fire Service Inspectorate took the initiative and a consultancy project was set up to investi gate the applications and possible benefits of Automatic Vehicle Location AVL in the U K Fire Service The consultancy contract was awarded to Fortek C
84. ber of the housing scheme for cross reference to the PDA and any access codes or instructions Some Community Alarm Centres monitor calls over more than one Fire Service area These become out of area calls which risk being mis routed The procedure for these calls is that the CAC operator will dial 999 give the name of the community alarm cen tre ask for the relevant emergency service and instruct the BT operator to disregard the CLI shown The BT operator will ask for the CAC client s full telephone number which is then typed onto the BT screen to give the connect to numbers for the area from which the original call was made The community alarm opera tor will then talk to the EA operator and pass details of the call This process will add about six seconds to the call but eliminates the risk of mis routes BT operators will monitor for the duration of the call Community Alarm Centres should be given details of appropriate ex directory numbers for instant access to the relevant Emergency Service Control Centre free of charge Communications and Mobilising 61 Communications Chapter and Mobilising Chapter 7 Automatic Vehicle Location systems Automatic Vehicle Location Systems AVLS are During the upgrade many of the large and expen not new they have been used in the United States sive resource display boards were replaced with tor some time and by a number of security firms in screen based resource displ
85. bilising com puter The keyboard may be a standard typewriter QWERTY layout or a standard keyboard with some of the key functions changed to dedicated functions 5 3 1 Mobilising System Functions The main function of the mobilising system is to aid the recording of call information and the despatch of the selected resources Secondary functions include displaying alarm conditions for the system and the generation of statistical infor mation Upon entry of an incident type and address into a predefined format the system will interrogate its database to match the address information If an exact match is not found the system may offer sim ilar sounding addresses to the operator It may also search for risks duplicate incidents telephone kiosks map references etc so as to provide the operator with as much information as is possible When an address match is made the operator is presented with a pre determined attendance and possibly a recommended attendance The operator is then able to accept the offered attendance mobilise an alternative or defer the incident placing it in an incident queue or merging it as in same as all calls Figure 5 4 Typical Operator Workstation Graphic Fortek Mobilising Workstation wegen pe meet ahem ayaa ate eT uit messes eta pE ee fa th fe irene eae yee utes a Ea NE a ls a Da To undertake these tasks the mobilising system accesses various databases that are
86. brigades could find themselves working against each other instead of working for the common good to the detriment of the public There was lit tle co ordination of resources or direction of the overall situation Over the next century and a half that was to change significantly One prime innovation which would start the long haul to a unified well organised service was the Metropolitan Fire Brigades Act 1865 The act covered the City of London and all other Parishes and Places for the Time being within the Jurisdiction of the Metropolitan Board of Works The Act also stated the need for the establishment of Telegraphic Communication between the sever al Stations in which their Fire Engines or Firemen are placed and between any such Stations and other parts of the Metropolis This enabled the receiving and transmitting of loca tions of fires to all stations connected by the tele graph system It was the first indication of mobilis ing from a source remote from the location of the fire and by necessity carried out by a fireman at the fire station receiving what was called a running call A situation that exists to the present day Previous page is blank Metropolitan Brigades had an advantage over the smaller rural Brigades by nature of their size and the population they served They were far better equipped financially to exploit the new technology that appeared such as a street fire alarms and fire detectors
87. busy periods The termination of all operational circuits on concentrator units avoids the unacceptable bottleneck which would be created if a conventional type of telephone switchboard was used Where concentrator units are repeated an incom ing call is indicated at all positions with a flashing lamp signal When the call is answered at one posi tion the flashing signal on all other positions changes to a slow wink on the lamp which indi cates that the call has been accepted and that the circuit is engaged until the lamp goes out The unit is also suitable for use when monitoring facilities are required e g to enable a supervisor or Officer in Charge to listen in to calls and to break in and assist when necessary The same termina tions and facilities as on the operational position units appear also on the supervisory position units and the circuitry can be so arranged that the action of listening in does not degrade or in any way interfere with the call The line concentrator unit is being superseded by a digital switch that incorporates duplication of all key elements of the switch Most switches use a PC and touch screen which is linked to the switch via a high speed local area network or a serial link Engineer Supervisor ail Cai Duplicated LAN DOOR LOCKS COTY Cuntrols tte Call logger DUPLICATED PROCESSOR DUPLICATED SWITCH Instant Recorders Operator
88. calling number given 6 On connection with the EA the Typetalk operator will relay the call between Text caller and EA by voice BT operator will nor mally remain on line to monitor call and offer assistance with locations etc The text side of all calls is recorded on disk for future review investigation if necessary Departures From Standard Procedure In the event that Typetalk are not given the calling number by the caller attempts will be made to establish their location This allows for connection of the call to the appropriate EA using the county lists and direct connect to numbers In the event of failed connections or calls which go off line mid stream the back up CLI Calling Line Identity printer is used to try and establish the calling number Attempts will be made to con tact the calling number If contact with the caller is not successful a call is made via the BT 999 ser vice to the Police control for the area of the calling number to report a failed Emergency Call It should be noted that the CLI is not always received It may be suppressed by the caller or be from a network which does not share CLI with the BT network The service is tested at regular and frequent inter vals This testing involves Typetalk and BT responses EA s and BT are not informed of the times of any test calls 4 6 Emergency calls from the Railway Industry Network Since British Rail was fragmented into a number of different
89. cedures Figure 12 2 above shows a typical data transmis sion system The Dispatcher computer interrogates the mobile to establish contact and on receipt of an acknowledgement sends the data as a burst trans mission The mobile is able to display and or print out the received message The process can also work in reverse with the mobile initiating the call 12 3 Current Technology The term mobile data encompasses data sent when an appliance is mobilised available en route to an incident or available at an incident Requirements for the provision of data vary from brigade to brigade leading to a multiplicity of sys tem configuration The main elements of these vehicle mounted systems are communications processors visual displays printers keyboards radio modems etc 12 4 Radio Communications Various options are available for the transmission of data between mobiles or from mobiles and or fixed locations Existing Brigade Radio Schemes It is possible to transmit data over existing analogue radio schemes in fact some brigades use this bearer as part of their mobilising arrangements Typical transmission rates are 1200bps Frequency Fast Shift Keying FFSK GSM Cellular Telephone The Global Systems for Mobile Communications GSM networks Figure 123 Data infrastructure Graphic Simoco Terminal Server Data Infrastructure Data system Mobs controller Figure 12 3 shows a typical data sys
90. cer s Letter Direct Dial In OFTEL s advisory committee on telecommunications for Disabled and Elderly People Communications procedures techniques and equipment where information is encoded as either a binary 1 or 0 A network specifically designed for the transmission of data wherever possible in digital form Department of Trade and Industry A communications technique in which it is possible to transmit and receive simultaneously e g as in an ordinary telephone conversation Emergency Authorities Emergency Authority Control Centre Effective Radiated Power Emergency Services Manager Extension Trunk Dialling Network European Telecommunication Standards Institute A device to operate the fire alarm system manually Fire alarm system Frequency FFSK FMG FRNT Geocode GIS GPO GPS GSM GTPS Handshake Hertz Hz Hilltop Sites HOFMG ICCS ICU Inmarsat A fire alarm system comprising components for automatically detecting fire initiating an alarm of fire and taking other action as arranged The sys tem may also include manual call points The number of cycles of wavelengths which appear to pass a given point in a specified time usually one second Frequency Fast Shift Keying Frequency Management Group Front Office Directory Assignment of a specific grid reference to an incident address or rendezvous point etc Graphical Information Systems General Post Office
91. comply with the requirements of the MG 4 specification they are not restricted from providing additional features either of their own idea or at the request of Brigades subject to these not compromising the prime requirements As these vary from manufacturer to manufacturer it is not intended to include these in this document 113 Transmitter The transmitter performs the following basic functions As the paging code specified in MG4 is POCSAG Post Office Code Standardisation Advisory Group this requires the transmitter to use FSK modulation The POCSAG code is referred to in a little more detail under Receivers MG 4 requires that a minimum of two trans mitter parameters be monitored during a call namely forward power and reverse power The transmitter must be capable of 25 watts output with the ability to set alarm trigger levels As a guide a level of 12 watts 3 db down would set the alarm The reverse power alarm indicates the efficiency of the aerial and would normally trigger at what is termed a voltage standing wave ratio of 2 1 or approximately 0 reduced power trans mitted The allocated frequency for Firefighters alert ing is 147 8Mhz and used throughout the UK A separate frequency allocated to Emergency Services is often used to provide wide area officer paging and on a few occasions has been used for mobilising purposes This fre quency is 153 05Mhz 11 4 Alerters MG 4 calls for th
92. considering future investment in new radio communications systems during the PSRCP development pro gramme The principal aim is that this guidance should ensure that any expenditure incurred repre sents good value for money and that essential operational needs continue to be met HOCAP s terms of reference are To provide guidance on the provision of new or enhanced communications systems for police forces and fire brigades until the PSRCP is complete To assist brigades in a achieving value for money b avoiding wasteful investment c maintaining standards d preserving national operating considera tions and e maximising radio spectrum efficiency To receive regular information from the Project Board on the progress of the Development Programme To promote the work of the Development Programme and the PSRCP to forces and brigades To maintain update and circulate Guidance Notes to forces and brigades The membership of HOCAP varies depending on which service has requested the meeting and the nature of the subjects to be discussed Chairmanship of the meetings will be either the Head of Home Office F7 Division or the Head of RFCPLJ as appropriate Other members will be the Project Manager the Senior Police or Fire Service Representative and the Senior Technical Representative In addition Project Assurance Team members and specialist staff may be co opted as necessary A series
93. correction 12 5 Data on Vehicles The data available on mobile resources is as diverse as that held in the office environment Individual brigade requirements vary from provid ing limited information held on mobile computers to being able to access personnel records building plans status messaging global positioning updat ing the central mobilising system receiving turnout information and chemical and risk data The data available must be current for it to be of value The provision of many geographically scat Communications and Mobilising 105 Printer Voice radio In Cab Equipment Mobile data processor PC Figure 12 4 In Cab Equipment Touch screen Graphic Simoco display Be Sens FHHEE a i a Ea Keyboard Figure 12 4 shows the typical vehicle installation in a Fire Appliance This comprises two separate mobile radios including a Voice Radio which can be used for voice transmissions at any time and a separate Data Radio operating on its own radio channel The Data Radio which would incorporate a modem would be used to pass status information various data andfree text information from a Mobile Data Terminal MDT which comprised an in vehicle PC Touchscreen Display Printer and Keyboard The PC might be equipped with large capacity hard drive memory which can hold map data chemical data risk files etc which can be triggered by the incoming data to give information specific to th
94. ction to control as incoming The equipment thus has a true control function exactly the same as that which the brigade control room has over the main VHF scheme hence the operator at the fire ground can control the miniature UHF scheme in just the same way Vehicle mounted sets are normally fully duplex usually with separate transmit and receive aerials although it is possible to use a single aerial with an additional unit known as a duplexer which enables the transmitter and receiver to oper ate independently and simultaneously with a single aerial The conditions of licence under which frequen cies are allocated and radio communications authorised restrict the use of Fire Service person al sets to low power short range communications In consequence the setting up of fixed base sta tions on personal set frequencies VHF or UHF to give greater working ranges for example throughout a town or city is not permitted because of the risk of causing interference to other brigades in neighbouring areas Normally there is no operational requirement for permanently engineered Fire Service personal set schemes similar to those which are an operational necessity for the police The normal Fire Service requirement is the need for completely portable short range systems which can be set up and brought into use at very short notice anywhere at incidents At specific locations fixed UHF base stations repeaters may be
95. cy communications with mobiles when no other normal channel is available Communications and Mobilising 91 2 CTCSS CTCSS stands for continuous tone controlled sig nalling system It is an optional feature already fitted in a small number of brigade hilltop receivers mobile radios may be similarly fitted In the normal way the squelch or mute of a receiv er is opened by the reception of a carrier signal of adequate strength The audio output of the receiv er is then fed to the loudspeaker or earpiece to reproduce any speech modulation superimposed on the carrier This normal system works reasonably well but it has two disadvantages 1 There is no way in which individual mobiles or groups of mobiles can be called indepen dently so that only those for whom a particu lar message is intended will hear it and 2 There are circumstances in which a radio receiver can be fooled by natural or man made radio noise so that its squelch opens when no real signal is present resulting in a noise output This particularly affects main VHF scheme hilltop receivers which control rooms need to maintain a constant listening watch CTCSS overcomes those disadvantages by super imposing a continuous low pitched tone upon the radio carrier at the transmitter in addition to the speech The continuous tone is used to open the squelch at the receiver after which it is filtered out so that it is not hea
96. cy services 4 3 Kingston Communications 4 4 Telephone Number Portability 4 5 Emergency Text Telephone Service for the deaf 4 6 Emergency calls from the Railway Industry Network 4 6 1 Paypnones 4 7 Cellular communications 4 8 Cellular 999 services 4 8 1 4 8 2 4 8 3 Name and Address Information of Mobile Callers Release of Subscriber information System Description ORANGE Communications and Mobilising Own br e 11 11 15 17 23 23 23 24 26 26 26 27 28 28 28 29 30 30 30 31 32 32 33 33 34 35 35 35 36 36 37 4 8 4 Cell EA Boundaries 4 8 5 Routing 999 112 Calls to EACCs 4 8 6 Cell ID Look Up Failure 4 8 7 EACC Connect to Numbers 4 8 8 Misrouted Calls 4 9 The satellite telephone 4 10 Public Warning and Information by Telephone PWIT 4 10 1 How the proposed BT PWIT system would work Chapter 5 Control Centre equipment 5 1 Control Centre Design 5 2 Communications 5 2 1 Administrative Communications 5 2 2 Safeguards for Emergency Communications 5 2 3 Provision of Suitable Circuits 5 2 4 Alternative Routing of Cables 5 2 5 Monitoring of Remote Circuits 5 2 6 Exchange Telephone Lines 5 2 7 Operational Lines 5 2 8 Line Concentrator Units and Digital Switches 5 2 9 Automatic Call Distribution 5 5 Computerising Mobilising System 5 3 1 Mobilising System Functions 5 4 Ancillary Control Facilities 5 4 1 Voice Recorders 5 4 2 Availability and Fire Situation Display 5 4
97. d Communications Planning Unit RFCPU undertakes the setting of communications standards and deals with medium and long term planning needs to ensure that the best possible communications are provided taking into account the rapidly changing technology to which radio communications in particular are prone Such work includes next generation sys tems for Emergency Service use speech and data security trunking radio schemes satellites replacement alerter system planning evaluation mobile data underground radio and line communi cation 10 1 Frequency Spectrum characteristics selection and allocation 10 1 1 The Frequency Spectrum Radio signals travel through space as a wave which for the purpose of this explanation can be likened to a wave on the surface of water Every such wave consists of alternative crests and troughs to which the following terms apply Communications and Mobilising 75 CYCLE the portion of the wave between succes sive crests or troughs which is repeated over and over again to form the continuous wave WAVELENGTH the distance between succes sive crests or successive troughs FREQUENCY the number of cycles of wave lengths which appear to pass a given point in a specified time usually one second Wavelength frequency and velocity are related in a very simple way Velocity Frequency x Wavelength However this formula does not show the relation ship very clearly Normally th
98. d accuracy with which an operator can confirm the incident location will depend upon the quality and comprehensiveness of the gazetteer As a minimum it will hold a list of street names for the major towns and district or parish names for rural areas additionally special risk locations will be included Associated with each entry in the gazetteer is a list of nearest pumps and special appliances PDA from which the operator can select the most suitable response to the incident Increasingly the quality of the gazetteer data is being improved and extended to work with digital maps In most brigades an extensive map database is held on the mobilising system this graphical database providing an alternative method for vali dating addresses and also a more appropriate means for holding risk and general reference data 5 4 4 Maps In Control Centres Ordnance Survey maps of the mobilising areas are available for reference pur poses giving such information as the boundaries of the area and the location of stations In addition larger scale maps may be held together with plans and diagrams giving details of motorways with their access and exit points dock and harbour areas new city development complexes unusual special risks etc Street maps often in a book for mat are also held to assist with the location of streets and to enable directions to be passed to appliances officers or other agencies As the amount of information
99. d as a means of determining the number of operators required from which decisions regard ing establishment and officer levels can be made HM Inspectors will also use the model to assess the adequacy of brigade staffing requirements Brigade managers are of course free to run the staffing model within their own brigades However the Home Office recommends liaison with HM Fire Service Inspectorate to ensure correct interpre tation and to develop a common approach HM Fire Service Inspectorate does not currently recommend a Grade of Service but may do so in the future Additionally Fire Service Circular October 1975 recommends rank levels for control personnel established by reference to the population within the Brigade area Communications and Mobilising 15 Communications and Mobilising hapter Chapter 3 A brief history of the Fire Control Centre In 1997 the Fire Service as we know it was 50 years old over those years a new career has evolved that of Fire Control Operator In the very early days strategic mobilising to fires was virtually non existent During the 1800s numerous fire insurance companies formed their won brigades of watermen Following a call to fire sometimes several of these Insurance Brigades would send their engines and on arrival would look for the fire mark to establish Whether the victim was insured and by which company In the free for all that ensued the
100. d by their licence to provide 24 hour access to customer information Therefore it may be difficult to fol low up a 999 call which has been interrupted or terminated in suspicious circumstances The Federation of Communication Services a trade association of the mobile communications industry have informed OFTEL that it is not commercially viable for all Service Providers to provide 24 hour access given the small number of cases involved The licence agreements of One2One and Orange enable them to supply their customers directly Therefore most of their subscriber information is available on a 24 hour basis Only a small percent age of their customers use High Street service providers It should be noted that licence agreements are sub ject to change However Brigades will be kept informed of all 999 issues through the 999 Liaison Committee Subscriber information for Cable customers is held by BT and Cable amp Wireless 4 8 2 Release of Subscriber information The principles and procedures applying to the recording of calls and the release of subscriber information for emergency calls originating in any mobile network is the same as those applying to emergency calls originating in the fixed network All the cellular 999 112 services work in much the same way Therefore a detailed description of one system may be helpful 4 8 3 System Description ORANGE Orange Personal Communications System PCS sometimes refer
101. d in telephone books under the heading of the local authority concerned 4 2 Cable amp Wireless 999 service Formerly Mercury Communications Cable amp Wireless work within the Code of Practice for The Public Emergency Call Service between Fixed Network Operators and the Emergency Services In February 1997 Cable amp Wireless outsourced the management of their Operator Services to a com pany called EXCELL Multimedia Services Ltd As well as handling all 999 calls Operator services handle Operator 100 and International Operator Services Any query or problem with the 999 ser vice should be referred to Cable amp Wireless Cable amp Wireless handle approximately 2 8 mil lion 999 calls each year It provides service to its directly connected customers and to the customers of a number of Other Licensed Operators includ ing but not exclusively cable carriers and mobile networks The Emergency Service operators are located in two call centres in Birmingham and one in Glasgow which handle all 999 and 112 traffic originating or connecting onto the Cable amp Wireless network anywhere in the UK These call centres are fully resilient being on sep arate power supply lines with separate multiple connections to the Cable amp Wireless trunk net work The sites have on site emergency power generator provision They share the same manage ment and ancillary structure 999 and 112 calls entering or originating on the Cable
102. d to alert the public about threats to their safety or provide information services at times of major disaster These disasters can for example take the form of flooding haz ardous chemical leaks or even freak weather con ditions Traditional warning methods involving sirens police with loudhailers or broadcasts from local radio stations have proved not to be particu larly effective Communications and Mobilising 39 Early in 1996 the Home Office asked BT Tallis Consultancy to investigate how the public tele phone network might be used to warn and inform people about impending life threatening incidents at any time of the day or night This investigation also considered the potential of improving information services to the public fol lowing a major incident Experience has shown that special telephone numbers broadcast for use by anxious relatives and friends seeking informa tion about an incident often result in considerable delays in obtaining the information Also in 1996 the Environment Agency awarded a contract to Kingston Communications to develop a flood warning system which would alert people vulnerable to flood danger to enable them to take necessary action to protect themselves and their property The warning system would also have to notify the police emergency services and local authorities The autodial system designed for the Environment Agency by Kingston Communications is capable of sending urgent telephone
103. date reports from the 999 Liaison Committee 12 OFTEL The Office of Fair Trading for Telecommuni cations OFTEL is the regulator or watchdog for the UK telecommunications industry It is headed by the Director General of Telecommuni cations The Director General is appointed by the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry and the appointment usually runs for five years OFTEL was set up under the Telecommunications Act 1984 OFTEL regulates through monitoring and enforcing the conditions in all telecommunica tions licences in the UK and initiates modifica tions to these licence conditions All telecommunications operators such as BT Cable amp Wireless formerly Mercury local cable companies mobile network operators and the increasing number of new operators must have an operating licence These set out what the oper ators can or must do or not do Under the Telecommunications Act 1984 OFTEL has a number of functions These include ensuring that licensees comply with their licence conditions advising the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry on telecommunications matters and the granting of new licences obtaining information and arranging for pub lication where this would help users and considering complaints and enquiries made about telecommunications services or appa ratus Under the Act the Director General has a duty to carry out these functions some of these dut
104. de radio schemes fall into this category with the result that at least two and in some cases more base stations are required Hence they are known as multi sta tion schemes One approach would be for the individual main stations hill top sites to operate on different channels in other words a number of single station systems and not an integrated scheme However mobiles receiving from one main station would not benefit from the fill in effects of other main sta tions as they moved into difficult areas The system adopted must appear to be a single station system even though two or more stations are involved It might be thought easy to set all the main transmitters at all the hill top sites on exact ly the same frequency so that their signals merge into one in the mobile receivers but it is in prac tice virtually impossible 10 2 4 The Spaced Carrier System The original classic solution to the problem was to 82 Fire Service Manual deliberately off set the frequencies of the main transmitters within the allocated channel width The 25kHz channel spacings used at the time per mitted at lest three slightly off set main transmitter frequencies which a mobile would receive as a single integrated signal without any noticeable interaction However with the compulsion to reduce channel spacing to 12 5 kHz the spaced carrier system has had to be abandoned because the narrower channel width channel does not permi
105. ded Control Centre rank struc ture is Fire Control Operator FCOp Leading Fire Control Operator LFCOp Senior Fire Control Operator SFCOp Fire Control Officer FCO Group Fire Control Officer GFCO Principal Fire Control Officer PFCO Not all these ranks are represented in every Brigade 2 1 Basic Call Handling Procedures The primary function of a Control Centre is to provide the essential communication link which enables the provision of emergency firefighting rescue and humanitarian services to the public when they call for assistance Communications and Mobilising 11 The basic principles of running a Control Centre have a common theme However the responsibili ties and accountability of each rank may vary depending upon the size of the brigade The detailed procedures for handling an emer gency call differ in each brigade according to its size and the type of communications and mobilis ing systems used Fire Control Operators are trained to elicit infor mation from those calling for assistance This activity requires the identification of the incident address and confirmation of the type of emergency for which assistance is required Difficulties in obtaining this information may result if the caller is unduly anxious or excited A Fire Control Operator will still need to bear in mind the primary purpose is to obtain information and will need to use effective call handling skills to overcome these difficulties po
106. dio scheme system used by the local police force The situation now is completely different for many years every fire brigade has had its own radio scheme with a high percentage of fire appli ances and other vehicles equipped with modern transceivers radio sets capable of transmitting and receiving In addition to the standard radio sets fitted in vehi cles which communicate primarily with the Brigade Control Room there is specialised vehicle radio equipment which can communicate with per sonal radio sets These provide on the spot fire ground communications and can have the added facility of being able to link personal radio sets into the main brigade radio scheme The primary objective of this book is to provide a basic knowledge of how radio schemes work their capabilities and their limitations sufficient to Chapter enable Fire Service personnel to get the best possi ble use from what is a highly sophisticated techni cal resource There is a continuous demand for improvements and expansion to radio schemes for additional radio channels which permit appliances at differ ent incidents to be dealt with independently and for new facilities of various kinds Unfortunately the unlimited expansion of radio as a medium of communication is not possible It is a finite resource with clear limits and as a result the extent and purposes for which radio may be used are strictly controlled The Radio Frequency an
107. dio within range of one base station can communicate with any other handheld radio within range of any base station The distance between base stations is limited by the physical length of the connecting cable 100m in the trials and by the maximum radio range achievable in the specific risk using UHF handheld radio radios Typical coverage using six base stations were 1150m in a Railtrack tunnel compared with 350m using a single base station The limit in this case was the length of connecting cables 810m in a BT cable tunnel compared with 160m using a single base station The Home Office has produced a specification MG49 for this type of equipment to enable brigades to carry out their own procurement In operational use one base station might be established on the surface A Breathing Apparatus team would then enter the risk area carrying one or more additional base stations and the associat ed connecting cables deploying a connecting cable as they advance The first base station auto matically emits a repeated tone so that the BA team can discern when they reach the limit of radio coverage from that base station At this point they can establish a second base station and connect it to the first base station thus providing Communicationsand Mobilising 113 ee Multi way Socket at rear of the Unit allows additional Units to be connected in series via an Audio Cable fo i i Stub Aerial f Fi On Off
108. dition an inter agency channel is provided Other users such as airport fire brigades and works fire brigades may be permitted to use one channel if the local authority Chief Fire Officer Fire Master considers this could improve operational efficiency and subject to the approval of RFCPU This for instance enables an airport fire officer instant radio contact with responding local author ity appliances equipped with UHF facilities 10 3 2 Mobile Equipment The World Administrative Radio Conference in 1979 directed that all emergency services in the UK still operating in the 88 108 Mhz VHF Broadcast Band must move to alternative bands by the end of 1989 Conversion of old equipment to operate in the new bands was not considered worthwhile and the opportunity was taken to re equip and standardise Current mobile equipment for the Fire Service nor mally receives in the 70 72 Mhz band and nor mally transmits in the 80 82 Mhz band Figure 10 11 A typical vehicle radio control unit Photo Simoco The standard mobile radio consists of two main parts 1 the transmitter receiver unit and 2 the control unit The transmitter receiver unit is the larger of the two and is placed within the vehicle The smaller control unit is mounted in a convenient position for operation by the driver and or the front seat passenger A multi core control cable with multi way plugs or sockets connects the two units together Connect
109. e incident The Touchscreen gives the mobile operator the facility of manually accessing data maps etc or of inputting status or text messages as required The printer makes it possible to produce hard copy of diplaxed data while the keyboard max be used for the inputting of text or for maintenance access tered mobile data terminals leads to difficulties in maintaining the data especially if a large percent age is held on the terminal It is essential that a robust and effective system is established so that updating the stored information is carried out on all the terminals within a minimum period of time Part of this process should include an audit trail so that it is possible at a later stage to verify when and who amended any of the data files Various meth ods have been adopted to carry out this procedure including updates by floppy disk CD ROM radio 106 Fire Service Manual or wire connection to each data terminal when the vehicle is in the fire station 12 6 Typical Data Requirements The following data packages are available for use on mobile processors whether held on the mobile retrieved from a central source or a combination of both Software licensing issues along with other factors may influence whether data is held cen trally or dispersed amongst the mobile terminals Status Messaging The ability of the mobile resource to update the central mobilising computer of any change of status instead of using a
110. e locked and the key retained outside the hazard area In ordinary fire brigade use such a fitting may be an inconve nience To obviate the possibility of components over heating current limited devices often resistors have to be fitted which may reduce performance Extra thermal insulation may have to be provid ed making the equipment more bulky than it would otherwise have been The mandatory dis tance separations of components and conductors on printed circuit boards may also affect equip ment size Requirements for special materials or plating nec essary to withstand long term exposure to certain chemicals involve considerable additional cost as does the incorporation of all the other non stan dard requirements mentioned These are some of the factors which combine to make the idea of using this equipment for all purposes quite unat tractive both from size and costs 15 5 Selection of Explosion Protected Equipment The current recommendation to the fire service is that radio equipment purchased for use with breathing apparatus should be certified by an EU approved Certification Body for use in Zone 1 with gas group IC and a minimum temperature rating of T4 Such equipment will be indelibly marked as follows EEx ib IIC T4 or T5 or T6 Certified equipment must cater for worst case con ditions for the whole of its working life under con tinuous operation in a hazardous environment It must also take into accou
111. e of explosion protected intrinsically safe hand held radios or telemetry equipment within a silo provided that a risk assessment has been carried out and it is considered that the opera tional and safety benefits of so doing exceed the remote risk of ignition Communications and Mobilising 119 Communications and Mobilising Glossary of terms and abbreviations Address Point Alerter system Algorithm Analogue ACD AFA AVLS BA Interface Bandwidth Base Station CACFOA Call sign CCTV Cellular Ordnance Survey digitally co ordinated postal address data A call out system utilising pocket alerters carried by retained firefighters which are triggered by a radio signal transmitted by a remotely controlled alerter transmitter usually located at a fire station A procedural model used when computing complicated calculations e g routes and drive times An analogue signal is one which can vary continuously taking any value between certain limits The human voice for which the public telephone network was designed is an analogue signal varying in frequency and volume Automatic Call Distribution Automatic Fire Alarm Automatic Vehicle Location Systems An interface designed to permit a handheld radio set to be used in con junction with breathing apparatus The range of signal frequencies which can be carried by a communications channel subject to specified conditions of signal loss or dis
112. e other is linked to an extension of the Meridian telephone system The GSM link can be established from either end Control Centre Operators can choose the resolution best suited to the image In high resolution the image is updated a few seconds behind real time at the lower resolution the image is updated more slowly but technology will continue to improve these times This update rate is achieved by only updating those parts of the picture that move and the images can be recorded at both ends it is also possible to incorporate an audio facility Cellsend does not require a PC to operate the system Results from tests in these Brigades indicated the technology worthy of further research The general public are more aware of the Fire Service than they were in the past Unusual inci dents are of widespread interest especially where rescue is involved and these pictures are in heavy demand from news media Communications and Mobilising 73 The opportunities provided by developments in communications computing and video technology enable the Fire Service to provide a more effective efficient and safe front line service 14 Fire Service Manual Communications and Mobilising Chapter 10 Radio Figure 10 1 Appliance radio in use Photo HM Fire Service inspectorate The Manual of Firemanship first contained in 1954 a section dealing with Radio At that time the majority of fire brigades shared the ra
113. e service are Secretary of State for the Home Department England and Wales Secretary of State for Scotland and Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Parliamentary Under Secretaries of State Fire and Emergency Planning Prisons etc Director Fire and Emergency Planning Her Majesty s Chief Inspectors of Fire Services Central Government Responsibility for the Fire Service While Fire Authorities have statutory responsibili ty for the provision of fire cover and exercise day to day control over activities of their fire brigades the Home Secretary has a central responsibility for the efficiency of the fire service and is answer able to Parliament on fire policy Assistance is given to Fire authorities by the Home Office in establishing standards and the provision of techni cal guidance In England and Wales the Home Office Fire and Emergency Planning Directorate advises the Home Secretary on fire matters including the oper ational efficiency of the fire service and the enforcement of fire safety legislation Fire Brigades are inspected by HM Fire Service Inspectorate The Inspectorate also provides the technical resource for compilation of codes of practice and guides to legislation for the benefit of Fire Brigades HM Chief Inspectors provide reports to the rele vant Secretary of State Fire Service Funding In England and Wales fire services are provided either by County Councils or Combined Fire Authorit
114. e trans mitter is mounted under the rear rim of the helmet This transmitter takes its power from a harness mounted battery pack the antenna is also mounted on the rear rim protruding upwards The harness also has a lapel viewer in the form of a small LCD screen which allows the wearer to monitor the video picture being transmitted The camera is wired to the transmitter through a connector to allow connection of the ISG ther mal video overlay camera if necessary The Cellsend system uses digital technology to send video images from the ICU to the Control Centre Two modems are installed one in the ICU and the other in the Control Centre The modem in the ICU Figure 9 4 Video rack installed in an Incident Command Unit At the top are the quad and master monitors Below this is the real lapse time video recorder Below this is the Cellsend modem that permits transmission of pictures to Brigade Control via GSM telephone Below this is the video processor for manipulat ing up to inputs freezing images and electronically enlarging if required Other facili ties are also available The unit below this con trols the mast mounted camera The bottom lighter unit is the control case for MAVIS and the receiver for the microwave transmissions from both MAVIS and the helmet camera which normally operates within the ICU Photo Bedfordshire Fire and Rescue Service is linked to a mobile GSM phone while th
115. e use of alerters working to the POCSAG format which are produced by virtually all manufacturers and uses a 7 digit numeric address or Ric Receiver identity code code The Home Office instituted a numbering scheme whereby the last three digits are fixed for each Brigade The POCSAG code allows the first four digits to range from 0000 to 1999 a total of 2000 codes per Brigade In the event of a Brigade requiring more Ric codes if for instance multi Ric code alerters are used for officer paging then these are available on application to the Home Office Two Ric codes are normally required for Firefighters alerters but versions with 4 codes are available Alerters need to be robust and have protection against ingress of moisture and dust POCSAG pager design is driven by the large area wide pag ing market demands of companies such as BT and Vodapage together with other international service providers Final design is therefore a compromise between design requirements ready availability and competitive pricing This results in low cost units which are often cheaper to replace than repair Firefighters alerters are normally of the tone only type although some have limited display options to highlight Fire or Test calls A flashing LED oper ates on receipt of a call The use of rechargeable batteries has virtually disappeared although still available A limited need for intrinsically safe alerters exists more from the point of v
116. e velocity is a con stant for a particular type of wave in given condi tions so more specifically Velocity constant Frequency l 1 Wavelength or Velocity constant Wavelength Frequency Radio waves are just one form of what is known as electromagnetic radiation other forms being micro waves infra red heat visible light ultra violet and X rays These all have one very important common charac teristic which is that they all travel through space with the same very high velocity This is 300 mil lion metres or 186 000 miles per second For all earthly distances this is virtually instantaneously The only difference between the various forms of electromagnetic radiation is that they each occupy different ranges of frequency and hence different ranges of wavelengths Radio waves occupy the lowest range of frequencies and hence the longest range of wavelengths followed by infra red visible light ultra violet and X rays Even though they occupy the lowest part of the spec trum the frequencies of radio waves are quite high in numerical terms The lowest usable frequency for radio communication is about 10 000 Hertz corresponding to a wavelength of 30 000 metres 76 Fire Service Manual The highest frequency currently in use for radio communication within the fire service is about 2 300 000 000 Hertz corresponding to a wave length of 0 13 metre 13 cms The Police use higher frequency band
117. eadquarters or in a purpose built building within the County A Control Centre is staffed in shifts to provide 24 hour cover by uniformed professionals who although employed under different conditions of service to Fire Fighters are an important part of the Fire Service Secondary and tertiary control systems are also maintained to ensure a continuity of service There are no national standards of efficiency for handling fire calls but many Chief Officers have set their own standards which are set out in Brigade Orders Service Instructions or their Citizens Charter In most cases the Control Suite comprises a Control Centre training room offices equipment rooms kitchen rest room store rooms locker rooms toilets etc These rooms and facilities should be well designed and within easy access of the Control Centre room Control personnel performing duties away from the Control Centre may need to be recalled if there is a sudden spate of calls or personnel become busy for other reasons Easy access from anywhere within the suite will enable personnel to respond quickly Comprehensive guidance on the design of Control Centres was issued in DCOL 8 1997 in Scotland as DFM 8 1997 FRDG Publication 2 97 This is an updated version of Volume 5 of the Home Office Guidance usually referred to as Logica The document includes advice on the Control Centre design amp ergonomics procurement and legislation The recommen
118. ed to the control unit are the handset and the loudspeaker Provision is made for two loudspeakers so that one can be fitted in the cab and one at the rear of an appliance if required Connected to the main unit are the aerial and the battery Installation The installation of radio equipment in all vehicles motor cars in particular is controlled by the requirements of Health amp Safety and compatibili ty non interference with other sophisticated vehi cle electronic systems which are now fitted as standard equipment Standard fits in which the precise location of every part of the radio equipment is defined should be agreed by the vehicle manufacturers the Communications and Mobilising 89 Fire Service and the service provider The staff who actually install the equipment have no author ity to deviate from the standard fits because in attempting to meet the wishes of vehicle owners a physically or electrically dangerous situation may result Further guidance on installation of mobile radio equipment in fire appliances is available from RFCPU 10 3 3 The Aerial It is a truism that any mobile radio is only as good as its aerial hence the design of the aerial and its location on the vehicle largely determine the over all performance obtained The type of VHF aerial currently fitted on fire mobiles is known as a quarter wave rod its length being almost exactly one quarter of the transmitted wavelen
119. ed transmit ter the frequency appears to increase slightly but if the vehicle is moving away the frequency appears to decrease slightly Doppler effect is of no consequence in a single station scheme because the change is so small compared with the channel width Likewise it was unnoticeable in spaced carrier systems because the changes are so small compared with the deliberate off sets However Doppler effect may well be noticeable in quasi synchronous common fre quency systems when a mobile is in an area where it receives more or less equal signal strengths from two hill top sites and is travelling towards one but away from the other One frequency appears to increase while the other appears to decrease with the result that the difference super imposes a war ble or flutter on the received speech which varies with vehicle speed Every effort is made to engineer schemes by loca tion of hill top sites by adjustment of transmitter power by use of directional transmitter aerials etc so as to minimise the effects but because its cause is a natural phenomenon it can never be completely avoided When a mobile is stationary in a position where it receives more or less equal signals from two sta tions the small difference between the two fre quencies may be noticeable as a slow whoosh ing Normally it is only noticeable when the trans mitter is on without any speech and it does not impair speech intelligibility If it
120. edure Duty Systems Detached Duty Procedure Grievance Procedure of the word processor and other software pro grams in use and the completion and distrib ution of MIS reports where applicable of the Brigade administrative procedures control records and filing systems of the control business plan and the Brigade plan where applicable of stores requisitions and goods services received A comprehensive knowledge of Brigade organi sation including Brigade line of command Brigade Divisional organisation Control management and responsibilities Support services of completing incident statistics and the ability to complete project work and indi vidual administrative references as detailed by the Watch Officer having received specif ic tuition as required As the operator progresses through the ranks many other skills are required See core skills in Fire Control Centres section Some examples of these are listed below Officers should show the ability to fulfil all obligations appropriate to rank and position supervise and assist control operators impart knowledge to others apply the Fire Service Discipline Regu lations 1985 as a Supervisory Officer apply conditions of service including welfare and health amp safety as a Supervisory Officer communicate effectively design programme run and monitor effec tive training programmes commensurate with Brigade
121. ely small and should definitely be consid ered If the cost of introducing mobile data cannot be justified then the benefits which could be provid ed by AVL at relatively minor additional cost may make the difference in justifying the introduction of the mobile data network The terrestrial solution offers a different approach Since the required infrastructure has already been put in place by Datatrak it is viable to introduce AVL with relatively little up front investment Such a system should provide two way data which for mobilising purposes is considered essential Communications and Mobilising 67 7 6 Conclusions An AVL system operating as part of a two way mobile data scheme will provide a brigade with the opportunity to simplify and improve its mobilis ing procedures by providing information which can be used in selecting the nearest quickest appli ances to an incident Clearly busier brigades with a high proportion of wholetime crews stand to gain the greater benefits from AVL However even these brigades would need to consider changing a number of existing operational procedures There would also be a need to make a significant investment in upgrading the data particularly the gazetteer used by the mobilising system and pos sibly to upgrade the mobilising system itself Without such a commitment it will not be possi ble to realise the benefit of improved mobilising AVL data will also improve the qua
122. em available and cost effective The station end GD92 is similar but on a smaller scale and serves to interpret incoming instructions and operate printers sounders lights doors appli ance bay indicators etc In the case of stations with a retained element instructions from the GD92 unit are passed to the Alerter using the MG4 protocol 111 Alerter General Description The requirements of an Alerter system have not changed in essence since radio alerting was intro duced The fundamental need is still to call a retained crew to a station in the case of an incident or to send a test call to the alerters What has changed is the means and the method of operation resulting in greater detail concerning a calls progress being available at Control tion Graphic Muliitime Bearer Mobilising Communications Communications Alerter System Processor GD92 MG4 GD92 Bearer l CONTROL STATION Communications and Mobilising 99 It is not always the case that an MG4 alerter is installed at the same time as the Communications system is upgraded to GD92 In general older Mobs Comms systems presented simple relay con tact closures to the Alerter and expected a simple relay contact closure in return to indicate a suc cessful or failed call MG4 systems have to be able to operate in this mode leaving the more advanced MG 4 signalling protocol to be implemented at a later date This gives a Brigade the flexibility to upgrade
123. enforcing the relevant legislation representing United Kingdom interests in international meetings on radio spectrum management matters 4 Fire Service Manual seeking to ensure that all United Kingdom users manufacturers and installers of radio equipment comply with the relevant European Union measures and with the rele vant provisions of international agreements to which the United Kingdom is a party developing policy for and planning and reg ulating use of the radio frequency spectrum the geostationary orbit and other orbits of telecommunications satellites by all non government users of radio equipment in the United Kingdom except where otherwise agreed and monitoring the radio frequency spectrum as an aid to its management enforcement and ensuring freedom from harmful interference Radio Investigation Service The Radio Investigation Service RIS is the enforcement arm of the Radiocommunications Agency Its aim is to ensure that authorised radio users can operate without undue interference This is achieved by ensuring that licensed users adhere to the conditions under which they are authorised to operate and if necessary by taking legal enforcement action against those who operate radio equipment without regard to other authorised users The RIS has several roles resolution of interference problems inspection of installations at customer s premises and help and advise with r
124. ents and agencies involved with frequency management It examines proposals from departments to ensure that applications are compliant with the terms and conditions set out in the International Radio Regulations IRR and are consistent with effec tive use of the available spectrum From time to time it may agree to assign a service or application outside the terms defined in the IRR In such cases the group must be satisfied that no harmful inter ference will result to services operating in accor dance with the Radio Regulation Tables The Assignment Panel is broader based and includes representatives from Industry as well as government departments and agencies The panel examines all proposals to use shared radio bands Its primary responsibility is to ensure that no harmful interference results from the shared use of radio bands or to the dedicated bands which are allocated to various services applications Radiocommunications Agency The Radiocommunications Agency RA was established as an executive agency of the Department of Trade and Industry DTI on 2nd April 1990 Previously the RA operated as DTI s Radiocommunications Division The Agency is responsible for most civil radio matters other than those of telecommunications policy broadcasting policy and the radio equip ment market The main activities are licensing the use of radio equipment under the Wireless Telegraphy Act 1949 investigating interference and
125. er 12 Mobile Data 12 1 What is Data 12 2 History 12 3 Current Technology 12 4 Radio Communications 12 5 Data on Vehicles 12 6 Typical Data Requirements 12 7 Mobile Control Units Chapter 13 Breathing Apparatus Telemetry Chapter 14 Sub surface communications Chapter 15 Potential hazards of using radio equipment 15 1 Explosion Protection Standards 15 2 Ignition Sources 15 3 Protective Measures 15 4 Intrinsically Safe Design Criteria 15 5 Selection of Explosion Protected Equipment 15 6 Radio Use in the Vicinity of Explosives etc 15 7 Radio Use in the Vicinity of Retail Petrol Stations etc 15 8 Radio Use in the Vicinity of Air Bags 15 9 Radio Use in the Vicinity of Medical Devices 15 10 Radio Use within Silos Glossary of terms and abbreviations Appendix 1 Control Staff Training Competence and Promotion Fire Service College Courses Brigade Based Initial Recruit Training Appointment and Promotion of Control Personnel Standards of Competence Appendix 2 List of relevant DCOLs DFMs in Scotland and FSCs Acknowledgements vili Fire Service Manual 96 96 96 97 97 98 99 100 101 101 103 103 103 104 104 105 106 108 109 113 115 115 116 116 117 117 118 118 118 118 119 121 127 128 129 131 132 134 135 Communications and Mobilising Chapter Chapter 1 Regulatory issues 1 1 H M Government Members of Her Majesty s Government responsi ble for the fir
126. ers This protocol is now used by the majority of Fire Brigades For each of these bearers the protocols and mes sage formats have been designed to ensure that the mobilising system and hence the operator is advised of the delivery or non delivery of each turn out instruction The protocol supports administrative messages equipment status mes saging and other functions such as burglar and fire alarm activation power failure and restoration messages and tests of mobilising links to ensure their availability GD92 also supports two way messaging and hence station personnel can prepare messages locally and send them into control the most com mon example of this being the entering of staffing levels at a change of shift Mobilising System Configuration Hot Standby Station equipment has become increasingly sophisticated and is generally controlled by a micro processor or computer The system will check the incoming data to ensure that it is valid and then undertake a series of localised actions which may include Control of mains powered equipment such as lights doors and exhaust extract Signalling to crew alarms including audible alarms alerters appliance indicator lights Confirmation to the control centre that uncor rupted data has been received peripheral equipment has operated and crews have acknowledged In addition to this they may also run self checking routines to ensure that t
127. es at all incidents and the ability to apply them of advice to give to callers in emergency sit uations of specialised mobilising procedures applica ble to the brigade e g Cave mine and pothole incidents Tunnels Spate conditions Fires at sea Incidents involving cylinders of the location and mobilising procedures for all Fire Brigade equipment and appliances and the location of neighbouring stations of topography throughout the Brigade area including special risks of initiating appliance standby moves when directed to do so by the O1C 130 Fire Service Manual of chemical retrieval systems and the passing of chemical information to crews at the scene of an incident of the Central Risk Register and its uses of the use of special appliances throughout the Brigade of the construction correct use maintenance and standard tests off all items of equipment in use within the Control Centre of all control fallback procedures including secondary control of fault reporting procedures and recording and amendments to fault records of Health and Safety legislation particularly COSHH NAMOS CIMAH RIDDOR espe cially where they effect Fire Brigade opera tional or control personnel of accident injury reports completed by control of the Fire Services Act 1947 1959 Sections 2 and 12 of Conditions of Service with special refer ence to Leave Entitlement Sickness Proc
128. es of electrical energy and 2 Whenever a radio transmission is made the electro magnetic field radiates radio frequen cy voltages in all conducting materials in that field The induced voltages in adjacent conducting elements or between conducting elements and earthy conductors may be sufficient to break down intervening insulat ing layers of oxidation grease air etc and cause dangerous sparking This hazard is directly related to the nature of the environ ment the characteristics of the transmission power type of modulation etc and the dis tance of the antenna from the hazard 15 3 Protective Measures Fire service mobile radio terminals with an expected transmit power between 5 Watt and 25 Watt potentially introduce all of the hazards described in paragraph 3 above into the risk envi ronment There is also a potential risk that the antenna of a vehicle mounted radio may directly touch a conductor during transmission causing sparks 116 Fire Service Manual The design of such equipment precludes the adoption of any satisfactory explosion protection strategies and therefore such radio terminals must be regarded as a potential ignition risk when used in a potentially flammable or explosive dust gas or vapour When transmitting they may also introduce a risk of inducing a current in a conductor causing remote sparking and ignition or some other unwanted consequence The only practicable
129. es protection in disaster situations which cause a sudden surge of 999 112 calls If it is not possible to route operator traffic to the primary operator centre due to congestion or fail ure within the network or evacuation of an Operator Assistance Centre 999 112 traffic will be routed to an alternative OAC The connection of an emergency call involves four main phases Communications and Mobilising 23 1 Connection of the caller to the operator via the 999 112 code 2 Selection by the operator of the required Emergency Authority Control Centre EACC 3 Onward connection of the caller to the EACC and 4 Confirmation that the connection has been established with the appropriate EACC and ability to provide further assistance to the caller or EA when required The operator will monitor the call until the caller has passed their location and is clearly giving details of the incident The operator normally holds the call in the system without listening unless there are difficulties until both the caller and EA have cleared the line It is the responsibility of the EA Control Centre staff to obtain adequate address information from the caller to enable the EACC to locate the incident being reported 4 1 2 Operator call handling procedures The action of dialling 999 112 on BT s public tele phone network in the UK automatically routes the caller through to a designated Operator Centre Here if it is not immed
130. evel is caused by the effects of static electricity during a severe storm in the vicinity of a site Figure 10 9 Voice infrastructure y Fixed mobiles at Secondary location V Tx Inter Bde ra amp Pa L RI oh 21 22 Antennae combiner rei OPERATORS T a p Pe i Ax Remote control facilities are also provided to enable control room staff to switch main station equipment from Main to Stand by such equipment can be changed either individually Le just one faulty piece of equipment or collec tively 1 e all equipment In addition to the dupli cation of equipment a further safeguard is nor mally provided against complete link failure per haps due to aerial damage The equipment at all main stations is arranged so that in the event of a link failure the station changes to automatic talk through This means that any signals received from mobiles by the main receiver are automatically re transmit ted to the mobiles by the main transmitter instead of or in addition to being transmitted via the link transmitter to control This system provides some measure of service which is better than none until the faulty link can be repaired Under the automatic talk through system the mobiles can at least talk to each other but the con trol is isolated if the link is completely severed Even if the link still works one way the control will either hear what is going on with
131. g 65 7 2 Potential Benefits of AVLS to the Fire Service Potentially AVL data can be used to assist in the deployment and mobilising of brigade resources and to improve the quality of data recorded against each incident Knowing the precise location of each brigade resource should enable the control room to opti mise resource deployment and to ensure that the most appropriate quickest suitable resources are despatched to an incident Present mobilising policy seeks to achieve this objective by using Pre Determined Attendance s PDA s which are compiled on the basis of appli ances being at home station and hence at a known location when they are despatched to an incident which in a typical brigade will be the case for approximately 80 of incidents AVL data therefore has the potential to assist in the mobilising of resources to some 20 of inci dents by providing accurate positional fixes for the mobile appliances This information can then be used by the mobilising system to compute the nearest quickest appliances to the incident Generally speaking the resource deployment strat egy used by brigades necessitates standby moves to key stations to cover station areas when appli ances from that station area are unavailable Without AVL an appliance crew report their posi tion as within a station ground which in many cases is a rather imprecise location Through the use of AVLS a far more precise loca tion is avail
132. gencies and are usually requests for reassur ance or information In many cases a CAC can respond to a situation by sending out it s own mobile warden service or alerting family friends or neighbours However there will be times when the operator needs to contact an emergency ser vice including the fire service The policy of the national Association of Social and Community Alarm Providers ASAP is that in an emergency residents should always ring 999 directly as this is the quickest way of contacting the Fire Police or Ambulance Services There are times however when a call will be rout ed via a community alarm centre because many residents in sheltered housing do not have a telephone and their only means of call ing for the emergency services is via their community alarm some residents are able to summon help per haps by activating their pendant but may not be capable of talking due to a heart attack stroke or fall etc A CAC operator may knowing the circumstances of the caller decide to call out an emergency service The information which the centre possesses may be vital in ensuring the most effective response from the emergency services some calls are automatically routed to the CAC by a smoke or intruder alarm some community alarm users are confused and cannot easily communicate with anyone including the BT operator The CAC operator is a vital intermediary and some residents perha
133. gth For a transmitter frequency of 80 82 Mhz the wavelength is about 3 66 metres so a quarter wave length is just under one metre Ideally the aerial should be mounted in the centre of a flat electrically conducting i e metal sur face such as the roof of a car or van Many modern fire appliances have fibre glass bod ies and it is customary for an area of metal foil or mesh to be moulded into the roof of the cab during manufacture to which the aerial must be fitted If other roof mounted equipment such as ladders are fitted first care is needed to avoid encroaching on the critical aerial space Metal close to the aer ial will absorb the radio energy resulting in inferi or performance The aerial is connected to the transmitter receiver unit by a coaxial cable similar to that used to con nect a TV aerial to a TV set The performance of such cable is impaired if it is sharply bent or squashed even though there may be no visible sign of damage 10 3 4 Channel Selection The mobile radio as originally supplied by the Home Office has the capability of accessing up to 255 channels but at the time of writing only a 90 Fire Service Manual limited number are used Channels 1 to 20 are brigade allocated and each brigade has made its own selection The brigade s own channel or chan nels will normally be on channels 1 2 3 etc as required followed by the channels of neighbour ing brigades by mutual agreement
134. h in order that there shall be no over lap which would result in unacceptable interfer ence In fact the centre frequency spacing of adjacent channels are slightly greater than the bandwidths occupied Several technical factors including the design build standard and achievable frequency stability all determine allowable channel spacing Technical advances have made it practicable to reduce channel spacing progressively from 50 kHz to 25 kHz and currently to 12 5 kHz Reduction of the channel spacing specification to which all users and hence all manufacturers must comply has the effect of increasing the number of channels 100 kHz Channel 2 x 50 kHz Channels which can be made available within a given fre quency bandwidth A 100 kHz allocation will take two 50 kHz channels or eight 12 5 kHz channels This is shown in Figure 10 5 Nevertheless there are still not nearly enough radio channels available to meet the growing demands from would be mobile and personal radio users Further reductions in channel widths and channel spacing will inevitably be sought as tech nology continues to improve The alternative using digital technology is to place multiple speech channels onto one radio carrier by giving each one a time slot The TETRA system which is proposed for the Public Safety Radio Communications Project PSRCP has four speech channels in a 25 kHz bandwidth channel whereas GSM which is the system used for digital ce
135. he diverse nature of fires and special services they now attended many Fire Brigades have changed their title to Fire and Rescue Service The Home Office Guide to Fire Brigade Mobilising Systems known as the Logica report was published in 1990 to help Brigades with the specification procurement and support of their second generation mobilising and communication Systems Long gone are the days when all that was required of the watchroom attendant was to wind a handle for the station to turn out to a fire and hope that contact was made The requirements and expecta tions of the control room has changed and the improvements in communications have enabled a faster and more effective response Nowadays local knowledge is not enough even the most experienced Control Centre Operator could not retain the large quantities information required by a modern Fire Service All incidents and relevant information are logged and stored on the database of modern computerised mobilising systems An operator now requires keyboard skills and a knowledge of computers retrieval and statistical systems chemical and hazardous material Management Information Systems MIS map ping systems and most importantly call handling techniques An operator also needs to have a basic understand ing of the many communication systems be they voice or data that are used in the fire service In fact it is becoming increasingly difficult to distin gui
136. he repeater base station in the least advantageous location is switched off Regulatory approval must be obtained from RFCPU before specifying the installation of fixed UHF equipment which will be left permanently switched on Radio communications could be required to oper ate deep within an underground railway system railway tunnels building sub basements and other complex constructions The potential of deploy ing throw out and inbuilt leaky feeder sys tems should be considered even during the early stages of an incident A great deal of research is currently underway to improve underground radio communications Figure 10 15 Trunking concept Conventional 10 3 19 Security Modern hand held radio equipment is of signifi cant financial value and can also be of great value to others outside the service if used unlawfully Accordingly radio equipment should never be left unattended on appliances unless it is suitably secured against theft Handheld or portable radios should never be left exposed to public view in unattended cars even if the car is secured Arrangements for securing handheld radios on appliances will vary between brigades Suitable arrangements could for example include a locked container secured in the appliance from which the radio can be taken when required 10 3 20 Care Of Hand Held Radio Equipment The initial purchase of any handheld radio equip ment should include suitable pro
137. he police after consultation with industry or other emergency services to asses the risk and decide what action should be taken would give authority to alert the public via telephone 4 10 1 How the proposed BT PWIT system would work Select an area It is expected that the police as prime users would use a Geographical Information System GIS to make use of digitized Ordnance Survey maps displayed on a PC screen This enables an operator to zoom into a specific area and draw a radius or plume select specific premises or streets select zones liable to Hooding etc The selection is then translated into Ordnance Survey co ordinates to delineate the required area Input the message The police with advice from an expert on the hazard would initiate the emer gency warning message which may be spoken into the system or typed into the computer keyboard Send the request The selected area in the form of the Ordnance Survey co ordinates and the mes sage are sent electronically over a phone line to the BT distribution centre Databases are interrogated to determine the telephone number of all premises in the selected area including BT Cable and Wireless cable TV operators etc A large com puter system called a Speech Application Platform is used to convert text to speech where the mes sage has been input as a text message call all iden tified telephone FAX pager numbers and monitor the progress of the calls The system
138. hey are functioning cor rectly that the bearers are functioning correctly and that other conditions such as mains power and battery status are monitored Mobilising system architecture generally falls into two basic categories 1 Central Processing or 2 Distributed Processing Figure 5 5 Mobilising System Configuration Main Server Server NT Server Graphic Fortek Operator Position wae iT rida meat rene As a a ea Figure One ai l y ma ERTA a HE j k ree i a 1 Additional Operator a R Bridge l Positions connecting to other Network AS i Bearers to Stations Systems Required Communications Communications Processor One Processor Two Main LAN j m l HAAS N a Backup LAN Bearers to Stations 5 0 Fire Service Manual Bearers to Stations The workstations and or processors are linked together by means of a local area network thus providing a communications path to the various elements of the system Redundancy is provided in the system so that failure of any particular element will not inhibit the mobilising process 1 Central Processing Various standard com puter configurations can be implemented in a client server system consisting of PC work stations connected via a network to a server The server requires an operating system that is not only able to support multiple work sta tions but also has the processing capabilities
139. his configuration the work sta tion processors are high level processors which hold all the data base information such as incident logs and PDAs One processor is deemed to be the master processor and co ordinates the processes of the other work sta tions In the event of failure of this master processor then another workstation can be designated as the master Communications with other peripherals is carried out by other processors on the network for example each fire station has a processor on the network which is connected to the bearer interfaces It is desirable that local area networks used for mobilising should not allow access from other net works this could lead to congestion or failure of the mobilising system by corruption Consideration should be given to protecting the mobilising local area network and providing appropriate fire walls where necessary With cur rent technology it is possible to provide more than one network connection on a work station thus providing an operator with the presentation of information from different networks but not pro viding any interconnection of the networks Information required by other brigade departments such as incident logs or statistical data may be downloaded at pre determined times or in real time to another computer system for interrogation and processing Conversely data may be retrieved from other brigade computer systems by the mobil ising system for use in
140. i ly know their exact location and the radio commu nication system cannot pin point the caller either The resultant problem in a cellphone user having to detail this information when making a 999 112 call is likely to lead to delays in satisfactorily reporting particular incidents However in every case the caller should be asked to state their loca tion 4 8 4 Cell EA Boundaries Comparison of cell site boundaries and EA bound aries shows that cell boundaries are unlikely to overlap more than two adjacent EA coverage areas Where a cell coverage area straddles two or more EA coverage areas a particular EACC will be agreed and nominated to which 999 112 calls from that cell are to be directed 4 8 5 Routing 999 112 Calls to EACCs To enable the Operator to connect a cellphone 999 112 call to the correct EACC a map of the UK PCN BASE STATION Figure 4 5b Figure 4 5 Ax the caller moves around between cells the PCN system automatically switches the signal between base stations without interrupting the call Graphic One 2 One Communications and Mobilising 37 with EA zone code areas has been created The EA boundaries generally follow county boundaries Each cell within the agreed EA boundaries is mapped to a four digit zone code Orange zone codes are prefixed with 3 Cellnet zone codes are prefixed with 2 Vodafone zone codes are pre fixed with O Each zone code will be mapped by BT to the four EAs within
141. iately answered the call is visually and audibly signalled on all operating positions and in addition a special red light oper ates to ensure that the call is given immediate attention by a BT operator To cater for unforeseen circumstances EAs have to provide three separate routes from the Operator Services Centres to the emergency service The secondary and alternative routes would normally be used in sequence in the event of an unusually high level of traffic or a fault on the primary route BT will allow a 30 second delay with no reply before another route is attempted unless the EA control centre has a call queuing system in which case additional time is allowed For this reason it is vital to inform BT if any call queuing system is installed 24 Fire Service Manual These routes are Primary This is the route that the PTO operator will initially use to connect a caller to the EACC and the EA must provide sufficient capacity on this route to handle normal 999 112 traffic distribution EAs will reserve primary routes exclusively for receiving 999 112 calls Secondary In circumstances where the PTO operator receives no replyon the primary number after 30 seconds the operator will connect the call to a secondary number provided by the EA except where call queuing is used This pro cedure should only be necessary in instances when the EACC has an unusually high level of traffic or a fault in its switchboard or one of
142. ication and Mobilising 3 Service Once connected and an answer from the Emergency Service is gained the Operator will introduce the caller by announcing Operator call centre identification Customer s calling line identity or Direct line number provided by business caller Once these details are given the Operator will hold the call on the console and leave the call in progress allowing the Operator to become avail able to answer other incoming 999 112 calls The Operator will only remain on line if requested to do so by the Emergency Service Once the operator has left a conversation in progress between the Emergency Service and the caller the console will visually display the call sta tus When the call is complete and all parties have cleared the call the Operator can relinquish the call At this point a call print out will be generat ed providing the following details of the call Date Relinquish time Operator distribution cabinet number Console number Operator identity number Call type 999 112 Calling line identity amp zone code where applicable Number that the call was extended to Any operator comments relating to call 32 Fire Service Manual ified police control relevant to the area and advise of the caller s attempt and any other useful infor mation e g name address telephone number If during any 999 112 call attempt where caller s details cannot be retr
143. ice and Fire Licence For the fire service the licensee referred to in the licence document is normally the Chief Fire Officer Under the terms of the licence the licensee shall only use the Fixed Stations and Mobile Stations to send and receive wireless teleg raphy relevant to the operation of the fire services Private Contractor Access to Fire Assignments in the Home Office Bands With reference to the relevant Home Office Radio Frequency Policy Statement where private contrac tors are responsible for the provision and or mainte nance of Fire Service radio systems their staff may have access to certain Brigade frequency assign ments and be required to use these for the purposes of test transmissions The Home Office will autho rise the use of such frequencies within the Brigade area by private contractors subject to the prior agreement of the respective Chief Officer Use of Brigade frequencies at service centres remote from the Brigade area may be permitted conditionally but with prior approval from the Home Office Radio Frequency and Communications Planning Unit Such contractors will be required to hold a Test and Development T amp D Licence relevant to each Brigade to whom they remain responsible T amp D licences which cover the repair and servicing of radio equipment are issued by the Radiocommunications Agency and are subject to renewal annually on payment of the appropriate fee During the tendering stage B
144. ies include ensuring that telecommunications services are provided in the UK to meet all reasonable demands for them this includes emergency services public call boxes directory informa tion services and services in rural areas promoting the interests of consumers ensuring that those providing services are doing so efficiently and promoting research and development The Director General has extensive powers under the Telecommunications Act particularly when enforcing or modifying licence conditions He can direct licence holders to comply with a certain condition or conditions in their licences If they continue to breach the same condition s the Director General can make orders which are enforceable through civil action OFTEL is also responsible for administering the numbering scheme in the UK and allocates blocks of telephone numbers to operators A separate Numbering Administration Unit within OFTEL deals with this OFTEL monitors developments overseas Nowadays UK operators are international busi nesses and so are their major customers OFTEL takes a global view and ensures that UK policies and decisions reflect international develop ments they are also closely involved with telecommunications developments in the European Union OFTEL is a non ministerial government depart ment and is therefore independent of ministerial control Each year the Director General is required to submit a
145. ies in the shire and by joint Fire and Civil Defence Authorities in London and the former metropolitan counties Some funding is provided from central govern ment as part of a composite revenue support grant made to local authorities the remaining cost is col lected through the revenue support mechanism of the council tax The Fire Service unlike the Police Service receives no specific grant from central government The money distributed for the fire service Standard Spending Assessments is not ring fenced within the total amount available to the local shire authorities Total Standard Spending and the shire fire brigade has to compete with other local authority services for its resources The FCDAs have no other sources of funding The Combined Fire Authority CFA is financed by contributions from its constituent authorities who are required to meet their proportionate share of such expenditure Capital expenditure by fire authorities may be funded from borrowing capital receipts subject to certain rules or from revenue expenditure The Home Office sanctions borrowing for fire capital expenditure generally through the alloca tion of Basic Credit Approvals BCAs and Supplementary Credit Approvals SCAs for specific purposes Communications and Mobilising l L ee The Central Fire Brigades Advisory Council In England and Wales except on discipline and conditions of service matters the Home Secretary is advi
146. ieved from FRNT then the Operator will contact the Switch Network B divi sion SNB to obtain detailed information Where the caller is a subscriber of another Licensed Operator dedicated hotline numbers have been set up to each operator in order to pro vide speedy retrieval of information Cable amp Wireless have no plans at present to automatically forward CLI information to Brigade mobilising systems 4 2 2 Enquiries and requests from Emergency Services In some instances an Emergency Service may find it necessary to request additional information or to seek clarification after a call has been released by the Operator The Emergency Service must call the designated numbers within the centres and advise what additional information is required The request will be actioned by a Team Leader or Operator immediately Access to emergency call records and recordings should be obtained in accordance with the Fixed Network Code of Practice 4 3 Kingston Communications Kingston Communications Ltd are little known outside the Hull area but they have run an operator services Department since they were established in 1904 One of these services is handling any incom ing emergency calls from anywhere in the Kingston Communications network which is 120 square miles in and around the city of Kingston upon Hull They operate under the Fixed Network CoP and handle approximately 200 000 calls a year all operators are trained
147. iew of equipping Firefighters with such units because of the hazardous areas in which they normally work rather than operational reasons A vibrate option is available where the normal workplace is subject to high noise levels The Alerter is required to sound for a minimum of 30 seconds POCSAG pagers vary in the period of Communications and Mobilising 101 Figure 11 3 Alerter Photo Multitone Attachment lor lanyard Beeper output Removable clip t 3 3 A OS l E p g Battery AA Corporate label area Call source indicators ais r and pager status display n cance memory recall Lamp alert 4 Recessed off button Mute mode delete Actual size message button call generated by receipt of a single call from an MG4 unit and multiple calls are often used to achieve the overall required alerting period This has the advantage of increasing the chance of receiving a call as say four calls separated by 12 seconds improve the chances of receiving at least one good call in areas of weak coverage Alerters are equipped with a call cancel button 102 Fire Service Manual Communications and Mobilising Chapter 12 Mobile 12 1 What is Data In data communications information is transmit ted in the form of characters namely letters fig ures and symbols The information is represented by binary signals which are characterised by dif ferent states When considered electrically these signals correspo
148. igation con cludes that the interference was caused by a defi ciency within a Police or Fire Brigade s own equipment then a charged may be levied accord ingly Where interference is thought to involve another Home Office assigned service the Home Office Frequency Management Group should be informed immediately Where no suitable engi neering solution is possible consideration will be given to the reassignment of one of the services involved Air Ground Communications The Police are making increasing use of aircraft both rotary and fixed wing The Home Office has access to two 25kHz bandwidth air ground assign ments in the military band area of highband VHF 8 Fire Service Manual both of which are available for Fire Service co ordination with the police Fire Brigades are authorised to use one VHF sim plex channel and three UHF simplex channels for air ground use operating within the Home Office UHF band Two of the UHF channels are con tained within the 6 UHF Fire Incident channels namely channel or 6 Brigades may select Channel or 6 for air ground use but not both The choice of channel adopted by each brigade MUST BE notified to RFCPU for recording on the brigade s radio licence The third available channel is one allocated to the Police from the National UHF Channel Plan This chan nel has been agreed by the Association of Chief Police Officers ACPO primarily to facilitate the safe landing of other e
149. ignals only in the intended direction and only so far as necessary A radio system giving wide area radio coverage throughout the area covered by the mobilising control Control Station or simply Control This is the place where the operators who control the scheme and the main transmitting and receiving equipment of a scheme are located And Main Receiverssend radio signals to and receive radio signals from mobiles Are the transmitter receivers fitted in fire appliances and other vehicles Management Information Systems Monopolies and Mergers Commission Modulator Demodulator device for converting analogue signals into digital signals and vice versa A scheme served by several main stations e g a large country scheme Network Operations Unit OAC OFTEL Out stations PABX PCNs PCS PDA PECS PMR POCSAG Private wire circuit Protocol PSTN PTO Public Address PWIT RBRT RIC RIDDOR RFCPU Roamer Roaming Operator Assistance Centre Office of Fair Trading for Telecommunications All radio stations in a scheme including two way fixed and mobile sets and fixed receivers but excluding main stations main and sub controls Private Automatic Branch Exchange Personal Communications Networks Personal Communications Systems Pre Determined Attendance Public Emergency Call Service Private Mobile Radio A network developed for one particular organisa tion usually a
150. ilising system Spreadsheets for manipulating data Presentation software to produce lectures 54 Fire Service Manual Databases to produce statistical analysis and performance indicator criteria required by the Home Office Graphical information systems to produce maps and analyse statistical data in a map ping format Fire reports FDR 1 s required by the Home Office 5 5 Equipment at Fire Stations 5 5 1 Mobilising Computer Some Brigades utilise a computer on each station that acts as a station controller this controls most of the equipment associated with the mobilising of crews There are a number of data links to various items of equipment as defined below 5 5 2 Printers Printers in fire stations are primarily used for receiving turnout instructions from controls fol lowing the operation of the turnout alarm system They can also be used for the receipt of other non urgent operational information 5 5 3 Alerter Base Station Fire stations with retained crews have a base trans mitter to activate the alerters this equipment is capable of alerting crews with a number of differ ent signals A positive acknowledgement is trans mitted via the data link to the mobilising comput er and onward to the brigade control room when the equipment is actuated 5 5 4 Public Address System Many fire stations and headquarters have public address systems of one kind or another with loud speaker
151. iods a number of ex directory exchange lines are provided in the Control Centre where they appear at all operator positions together with the trunk subscriber circuit terminations 5 2 4 Alternative Routing of Cables To minimise the effects of a possible breakdown the scheme should always include what is known as true alternative routing of the lines serving the central control building i e the provision of at least two separate cables in different cable duct routes This principle should extend so far as is practical to all fire stations particularly where important or key stations are involved At the central control end essential operational circuits used for receiving incoming emergency calls and for remote control call out facilities should be equally divided between the different duct routes so that if one of them is interrupted e g due to flooding at least half of the circuits remain in operation 5 2 5 Monitoring of Remote Circuits The circuits which carry remote control facilities which are the essential backbone of any mobilising scheme should always be of the monitored type These give automatic indication to the Control Centre operators of faults as and when they devel op on the network enabling immediate action to be taken to get the faults rectified and to imple ment predetermined alternative arrangements for alerting the affected stations or personnel Communications and Mobilising 45 GD92 can
152. ion system were relatively slow and less reliable that methods involving private circuits The speed and resilience of the digital telephone network has improved the Communications and Mobilising 59 speed and should have enhanced the reliability of this method but no recent research has been pub lished on the subject Private circuits may over relatively short dis tances be established on a point to point basis but over longer distances part of the path between protected premises and the Central Alarm Station is usually shared by many subscribers In the latter case the many subscribers are connected via the alarm companies Satellites data concentrators from where a large number of signals are multi plexed via private data circuits This offers a reli able fully monitored signal path at possibly the highest cost British Telecom s CARE system is quite economi cal because it uses an existing telephone line Cost is therefore independent of distance between the Central Alarm Station and the protected premises This system is now available in most areas of the country Vodafone Data Network provides periodically monitored communications between a protected premise and a Central Alarm Station using Paknet Radio Access The cost is the same as a monitored telephone line and is independent of distance between the protected premises and the Central Alarm Station With radio coverage approaching 95 of the UK popul
153. is intrusive a small change of position to take advantage of local screening from one station can be advanta geous 10 2 6 Scheme Engineering A number of carefully sited main stations hill top sites are required to give brigade wide radio com munication coverage Figure 10 8 illustrates the way in which such schemes are engineered There are a number of variations particularly as far as the linking arrangements are concerned Under two frequency working there are two main frequencies 1 Outgoing main station transmit and mobile receive 2 Incoming mobile transmit and main station receive These main frequencies use aerials at or near the tops of the masts and the aeri als are almost always omni directional to cover the largest possible area 10 2 7 Links The links between the control station and the main radio stations can be by land line but the majority use radio links see Figure 10 8 Each radio link has its own dedicated pair of frequencies so that there is no mutual interference Directional aerials are used commonly known as yagis similar apart from size to TV or FM sound broadcast aeri als These aerials look at each other from oppo site ends of the link to beam the signals and pro vide the point to point mode Although in general each link has its own trans mitter and receiver and its own pair of dedicated frequencies the outgoing links from control are identical
154. k every main station hill top site direct from con trol in a radial cartwheel spoke configuration That was not always possible and in some cases a very remote main station is linked to control through another main station which is then known as a master station or repeater station With increasing congestion of the VHF band the use of master or repeater stations was becoming pro gressively unworkable but the move to microwave has removed that particular problem and microwave links are equally likely to be arranged in a daisy chain configuration Microwave links are wide band in contrast to VHF links which were narrow band In this context nar row band is 12 5 kHz just one channel width whilst wide band is several hundred kilohertz which is many channel widths This means that it is possible for a single microwave link to carry many separate speech channels using a technique known as Multiplexing 88 Fire Service Manual Figure 10 10 Micro wave link in daisy chain configuration 10 2 15 Multiplexing Multiplexing on a wide band microwave link does not save on frequency spectrum occupied because the total width of a number of multiplexed channels in a single wide band channel is greater than the sum of the widths of the same number of channels in individual narrow bands The big sav ing is On equipment one anologue microwave link can for example carry up to 36 separate speech cha
155. keep at least one free for outgoing calls or have these numbers allocated as incoming calls barred lines It is not uncommon to apply the facility of auxiliary working to such groups of exchange lines so that when the first numbers or lines of the group are in use the caller is connected auto matically to one of the free numbers or lines in that group However one disadvantage of this arrangement when applied to operational lines in a centralised mobilising scheme is that certain fault conditions in the telephone exchange might put all the lines of the group out of action 46 Fire Service Manual It is highly desirable therefore to split the emergency and the administrative lines between telephone exchanges so that they would not all be affected by one fault 5 2 8 Line Concentrator Units and Digital Switches Line concentrator units allow the operator to accept a call from whatever source with a single action and are more convenient to use than a num ber of telephone instruments These units can accommodate a variety of types of termination including exchange lines private wires and tele phone extensions as well as control terminations for the various facilities on Fire Service radio schemes These units can easily be repeated each with iden tical terminations and facilities at any number of operating positions in a Control Centre to facili tate the simultaneous handling of a number of dif ferent calls during
156. king are that it permits the control station to operate in the duplex mode which in turn allows a mobile to break in to a control station transmission when urgent attention is required due to a priority mes Figure 10 7 Simplex working out stations only double frequency t Transmitter Receiver MAIN CONTROL Se Ments egt sage It also permits the engineering of multi sta tion wide area coverage schemes 10 2 2 Talk through An important difference between single frequen cy working and two frequency working is that single frequency provides an all hear all sys tem whereas two frequency does not In two frequency working all the mobiles can hear con trol and control can hear all the mobiles but the mobiles cannot normally hear each other A pip tone busy signal short beeps about one second apart is therefore transmitted by control whenever it is receiving from a mobile It is an important aspect of radio scheme discipline that no mobile transmits when the pips are on except in urgent high priority circumstances Although the mobiles in a two frequency system cannot normally hear each other there are occa sions when it is more convenient for them to com municate directly rather than requiring the control operator to relay a message To make this possible two frequency systems are provided with a facil ity known as talk through Talk through is selected by the contr
157. l of all brigade resources PDA s call logging statistics and instant recall of information seemed very exciting There was talk of paperless control rooms In fact because of this belief many of the consoles designed at that time had no working space This mistake was rectified next time around In 1972 two new courses were introduced at the Fire Service College one was for Communi cations Officers a post usually occupied by an operational fire officer and the other was the very first course especially for Control Room staff a Supervisory Officer s course By 1974 in part due to Local Government reorganisation the concept of a central control room for each County was well established This was also the year in which Local Area Health Authorities were formed and Fire Brigades and the Ambulance Service went their separate ways 1975 saw the standardisation of Control staff rank structure and markings and recruiting was geared to the special skills required of an operator Grampian Fire Brigade was the first to use com puter aided dispatch closely followed by Greater Manchester Fire Brigade who went live with a fully computerised Ferranti Argos system in 1979 By the late 1980 s almost all of the Fire Brigades in the United Kingdom had a computerised mobil ising system although some were more sophisti cated than others The number of emergency calls is increasing year by year as is the type of emergency To reflect t
158. larly bear in mind that there are disadvantages to the use of radios with BA Radio signal penetration in some types of buildings can be limited Some atmospheres are so potentially haz ardous that only communications equipment with the highest standard of explosion protec tion should be used Radio systems can operate explosive devices designed to be operated remotely Radio transmitters may interfere with build ing control systems 10 3 18 User Discipline The increased use of BA fireground radio general ly requires good radio discipline A very compli cated radio call sign system could interfere with operational flexibility and command at an incident and therefore self evident call signs are recom mended Call signs however should be such that the brigade can be identified from them especial ly in a multi brigade incident The possibility of cross incident and inter brigade interference from the use of over powerful trans mitters should be guarded against The transmit receive ratio of the use of radio should always be considered Transmissions should wherever possible be of short duration with an adequate pause to allow other users of the frequency with perhaps a higher priority message to transmit It is not possible for two UHF repeaters or mobile base stations on the same channel to operate simul taneously within range of each other Therefore it is essential that where this happens t
159. le for land based mobile and per sonal radio schemes the VHF and UHF parts Unfortunately these parts are also eminently suit able for many other uses notably the entertain ment side 1 e broadcast radio and television There are also allocations to marine aeronautical armed services public utilities and other commer cial user requirements There is therefore only a limited allocation available to the emergency ser vices of which the Fire Service is only one 10 1 3 Frequency Selection and Allocation From the spectrum characteristics in Figure 10 4 it is clear that the allocation of radio frequencies is not a matter which can be handled in isolation by any one service by any one government depart ment or even by any one country Agreement has to be reached on an international basis as to how the different parts of the spectrum are to be shared between the different types of service for which they are best suited For broadcasting civil avia tion and the mercantile marine operation in the same bands of frequencies may be either by regional cover or world wide Block allocations of frequencies by function are agreed from time to time at conferences of the International Telecommunications Union of which practically all countries are members These block allocations by broad function are then divided nation ally among the various users of each type of service 78 Fire Service Manual Low Frequencies LF or Long
160. led in or can be operat ed from the control room then in the event of total link failure a control room operator will be able to fully participate in whatever remains of the radio scheme through the auto talk through facility In this context the fixed mobile may alternatively be described as reverse frequency equipment because its transmit and receive frequencies are the reverse of those for the normal outgoing and incoming control channels It can also be used as a realistic way of checking hill top site performance within radio range of control Although individual fire brigade systems are total ly independent it is very useful for the control rooms at least to have access to the schemes of neighbouring brigades This facility is useful when incidents occur over brigade boundaries or when assistance is sought at large incidents Such access is also provided by a fixed mobile each control room having a radio which operates on the mobile transmit and receive frequencies of the neighbour ing brigade s The fixed mobile originally supplied by the Home Office can also be programmed with the two man pack frequencies Channels 21 and 22 allowing when radio range permits direct radio communi cations in an emergency when main scheme fail ures occur between control and vehicles 10 2 11 Main Control A radio scheme with a considerable number of users all operating on the same channel is almost unworkable u
161. lising 21 The trials assess The performance of the technical solution Processes such as audit trails The most cost effective packages for rollout Savings in time to despatch EA Reduction in call handling times BT and EA The results of these trials will give BT information which will be used for the long term solution when the European standard is agreed Whichever system is used it will only be possible to automatically obtain the telephone number and address of the caller if they have dialled 999 or 112 The system design dictates that these calls fol low a certain technological route which safeguards the integrity of the BT system It will not be possible for any EA to type in a number and interrogate the BT database By the act of dialling 999 112 it is deemed a caller has given consent for this information to be used and therefore complies with the Data Protection laws Although in most cases the emergency call is made from the address of the fire it should not be assumed that this is so Experienced EA opera tors will recognise the dangers and know how easy it is to get an affirmative answer to any question Training on call handling procedures will have to reflect this 4 1 7 Network Resilience In the event of a major failure to a part of a PTO s network the PTO will notify the affected EAs as soon as possible after the failure is identified or is anticipated The process for informing EA s of
162. lity of opera tional and management information by accurately locating all incidents and logging resource jour neys to those incidents The technology exists to deliver quality data to fire fighters and control staff alike with AVL data being just one element In formulating a strategy for the introduction of new technology it is inap propriate to view an AVL system as an indepen dent item since it will only be effective if it is introduced as part of a broader overall scheme to improve the quality of data brigade wide At the time of writing 1998 the incremental cost of including AVL technology as part of a mobile data scheme will be relatively low However the investment required to create the environment in which it can be exploited will be significant 68 Fire Service Manual Communications and Mobilising Chapter Chapter 8 Smart and Swipe Cards Smart Card and Swipe Card systems have been in use both in the commercial and industrial arenas for many years but have rarely been used for fire service related purposes Now however several fire brigades are using them in a number of differ ent applications These cards employ a number of tried and tested methods of data capture and transmission along with associated readers The reading technology of these cards may be magnetic bar code proximity inductive or smart chip Data collected remotely is passed via a preferred transfer medium PSTN ISDN or radi
163. llular radio currently has 8 speech channels in a 200 kHz bandwidth channel Advances in technology will soon increase this to 16 speech channels in a 200 kHz bandwidth channel 10 2 Radio Scheme Engineering 10 2 1 Modulation methods The technique of super imposing a speech signal on a radio wave is called MODULATION The radio wave then becomes the carrier for the speech and it is often referred to as the carrier wave or simply the carrier Basically the radio wave is a Single frequency of constant amplitude which means that all the peaks in the wave have the same height and all the troughs have the same depth Figure 10 5 Channel spacing Communications and Mobilising 79 Modulation can be superimposed by varying either the frequency or the amplitude of the basic radio carrier Thus there are two techniques currently in use in the fire service 1 Frequency Modulation FM 2 Amplitude Modulation AM Whichever method of modulation is used the result is to produce side frequencies just below and above the carrier frequency It is the presence of these side frequencies which causes the radio signal to require a small band of frequencies and they determine the bandwidth of the signal Within the narrow channels used for mobile radio 12 5 kHz there is little difference between AM and FM in terms of user noticeable performance In schemes originally provided by the Home Office prior to 1
164. m systems The code recommends that the date and time of origin of all incoming and outgoing signals and incoming and outgoing communications are automatically recorded With regard to communications with the fire brigade BS 5979 recommends that there be two independent means of outgoing communication between the Central Alarm Station and the Control 5 8 Fire Service Manual Centre of the fire brigade appropriate to the geo graphical area from which alarm signals are received This latter caveat is particularly important It is unacceptable for a Central Alarm Station to receive connections from FAS in areas for which there was no acceptable means of com munication between the Central Alarm Station and the relevant fire brigade It has been known for a Central Alarm Station to dial 999 in the hope that the local brigade will connect them to the appropriate brigade The use of the fire brigade administrative tele phone number for passing fire calls is also unac ceptable The code recommends that the two means of com munication with the fire brigade be selected from the following A dedicated voice transmission path A supervised data transmission path An ex directory telephone number for the Control Centre this should be recognisable at the Control Centre as an emergency call from the Central Alarm Station The 999 system provided this will result in the public telecommunications operator rout ing
165. mergency services aircraft on roads Brigades may occasionally have a need to commu nicate from air to ground or vice versa utilising the Police VHF or UHF channels Before doing so prior approval of the relevant Chief Constable must be obtained All equipment regardless of channels used in air craft must comply with the technical parameters and approvals as laid down in Radio Frequency Policy Statement FPS 11 The Home Office RFCPU recognises that for cer tain very specialised radio equipment it may not be practical for manufacturers to submit a produc tion sample for independent testing This equip ment will usually be low powered and produced in very small quantities The risk of interference to others is therefore considered to be very small Under these circumstances approval may be granted for use of the device in Home Office bands without the need for independent testing provided the manufacturer or supplier submits satisfactory written evidence of the performance characteris tics to RFCPU 14 Home Office Communications Advisory Panel HOCAP This panel was created as part of the Review of Radio Communications in the Police and Fire Service The recommendations of the review are now being taken forward in a project known as the Public Safety Radio Communications Project PSRCP HOCAP s role is to provide guidance to Police Forces and Fire Brigades to assist them in making informed decisions when
166. n Annual Report on the department s activities and those of the Monopolies and Mergers Commission MMC in the telecommunications area to the Secretary of State This is laid before Parliament Funding is provided by Parliament but the cost 1s offset almost entirely by the licence fees paid in by the operators OFTEL staff are Civil Servants and experts from consumer business and industrial backgrounds The Director General also has six Advisory Committees to advise him on telecommunications matters The only one of these committees that has a direct relevance to the Fire Service is the Advisory Committee on Telecommunications for Elderly and Disabled People DIEL One OFTEL proposal was the introduction of a BT Lifeline service This service which gives provi sion for 999 112 calls also allows incoming calls for a few pence a month A change to the discon nection policy may include barring of outgoing calls as an alternative to disconnection emergency calls could still be made 13 Radio Frequency Management Frequency management in the United Kingdom is an inter departmental function of central gov ernment accountable to a cabinet committee Two sub groups and a small secretariat are responsible Communications and Mobilising 3 for the general radio frequency planning and assignment procedures on behalf of this commit tee The Frequency Planning Group is formed from representatives of all government departm
167. n emergency service Post Office Code Standard Advisory Group A dedicated telephone circuit permanently connected between two or more points for transmission and reception of speech and or data A set of rules governing information flow in a communication system Public Switched Telephone Network Public Telecommunications Operator A loudspeaker system which may be operated by remote control from a cen tral control room or locally for both operational and administrative purposes Public Warning and Information by Telephone Racal BR Telecoms Ltd Receiver Idendity Code Reporting of Injuries Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Radio Frequency and Communications Planning Unit Is the term used to describe a person who takes their mobile phone abroad with the specific purpose of making or receiving calls Is is the term used to describe the ability for a person to take their mobile phone abroad and be able to make and receive calls in a country with which their own network operator has signed a roaming agreement Communications and Mobilising 125 Running call facility Secondary Control Simplex working Single frequency scheme SMS Switch Talk through Telemetry Terminal TODS TOPS Transportable Radio TUES Two frequency operation UHF base station WAN WARC Wavelength 126 Fire Service Manual A facility at a fire station which enables a running caller to give an alarm of fire
168. na tive and evacuation connect to numbers to the relevant PTO and mobile operator who will fol low their mutually agreed update procedure The date and time that the new numbers become effective should also be stated 38 Fire Service Manual 4 8 8 Misrouted Calls Base station radio reception areas cannot be sharply defined or matched exactly to EA bound aries Therefore for some base stations it 1s inevitable that a small proportion of calls will orig inate outside the boundaries of the agreed EACC Also there are several other reasons why the base station handling the call may not be the closest to the incident 1 e The caller is moving and delays reporting an incident A distant base station across water can some times provide a stronger radio path than a closer one on land If the caller is in the radio shadow of a hill or large building a more distant base station may be selected Cellular radio signals can travel long dis tances in certain weather conditions The nearest base station is already fully occu pied It is also possible that the cell ID could give an incorrect but apparently valid code to the Operator due to a faulty console or a fault in transmitting the display information from the switch Once connection is established to the EACC it is the responsibility of the EA operator to estab lish that the call is relevant to the EA area or to instigate means of transfer if it is n
169. nally e g at major airports there are autho rised fixed installations Wide Area Network Interconnects geographically remote sites World Administration Radio Conference The distance between successive crests or successive troughs Communications and Mobilising APPENDIX 1 Control Staff Training Competence and Promotion Fire Authorities have a legal duty to ensure per sonnel are adequately trained The Fire Services Act of 1947 Section 1 1 states Every Fire Authority shall secure the efficient train ing of the members of the Fire Brigade Training should be appropriate to the position held and must develop and consolidate the skills knowledge and attitude of personnel to allow them to deal with a wide range of situations both effi ciently and safely The ever increasing number of emergency calls and increased managerial controls have created greater training needs not only for operational firefighters but also for Control Personnel The need for this training can be broken down into Training required to maintain the operational effectiveness of Control Centre Personnel Training recommended by the Home Office Training essential to fulfil responsibilities in respect of legislation i e Health and Safety Equal Opportunities Training desirable to enhance the profession alism of Fire Brigade personnel The combination of these four areas generate the requirements for traini
170. nciple are firstly that the operational systems can be much simpler and more easily duplicated at a number of operating positions and secondly that both operational and administrative systems can be operated simultane ously at maximum capacity at any time without causing mutual interference In the majority of Control Centres segregation applies The administrative PABX telephone switchboard is usually in an ideal situation else where than in a Control Centre and operated by non uniformed staff during normal office hours After office hours however when the switchboard is closed incoming calls are switched on night service extensions to terminate on Control Centre equipment 5 2 2 Safeguards for Emergency Communications The mobilising scheme should have been planned so that it is not seriously affected by congestion either in the Control Centre or on its communica tions systems It should also be able to function normally and without interruption in the event of a mains electricity supply failure either locally at fire stations or centrally in the main Control Centre Either the central control should be safe guarded so that there is virtually no chance of a complete breakdown there or alternatively there should be arrangements made for a secondary con trol to take over in the event of a serious failure of the main control or its communications There are however technical and economic prob lems involved in choosing
171. nd to for example tone ON and tone OFF In digital message transmission over radio circuits the signal elements of the characters are transmit ted in turn serially Figure 12 1 shows the rela tionship between DC keying and VF keying The Fire Service has been using Data at incidents for many years in various formats Data can be interpreted as telemetry resource updates risk information and can be deployed as direct links to command and control systems Figure 12 1 Relationship between DC Keying and VF Keying DC Keying VF Keying Tone Chapter Data Data transmission capabilities and speeds rates are dependant largely on bandwidth The band width and hence capacity has risen over the years and hence typical data rates now are around 9600 bits per second bps and with developing tech nology and compression techniques are expected to rise in the next few years Data can be sent both to and from vehicles and used to supplement information held onboard The development of personal computers PCs and associated software hardware now allow more data to be stored onboard vehicles 12 2 History Resource Availability Status RAS The use of mobile data in the Fire Service began in the late 1970 s when Resource Availability Status 0 Volts 0 Volts AM re Phase Modification Communications and Mobilising 103 Control Operator PC Mobile RAS was incorpora
172. ndary bearers should be independent of the primary bearer so that any failure will not affect both bearers Examples of bearers used are Kilostream circuits ISDN and PSTN telephone lines and radio links including dedicated data net works and brigade radio schemes The station end equipment must be able to receive and respond to control centre messages for turnout instructions from both primary and the secondary bearers In 1992 the Home Office produced a specification known as GD92 for a standard communications protocol to be used for all operational communica tions between the control centre and the station end equipment The main objectives of the specification were that products could be procured by fire authorities under a Framework Arrangement and would be interoperable with other products from the same or different contractors In addition Brigades and contractors should be able to enhance the basic products without affecting interoperability The Framework Arrangement was able to meet the need for provision of equipment with the differing Communications and Mobilising 49 capacities and performance required by different brigades whilst providing the benefit of economies of scale and boundary independence The specification was also beneficial to brigades procuring equipment outside the Framework Agreement GD92 defines a standard protocol and message format for mobilising systems over commercial ly available bear
173. neral applications where a potential ignition hazard exists is for equipment that is certified for use in Zone 1 with gas group IC and a maximum temperature rating of T4 Such equipment would be indelibly marked EEx ib HC T4 or T5 or T6 It is also recommended that such equipment should satisfy a degree of ingress protection of at least IP54 to EN60 529 It is recommended that radio equipment purchased for use with breathing apparatus should as a min imum conform to this standard The equivalent US standards are Underwriters Laboratories UL913 or Factory Mutual Class No 316 Communications and Mobilising 115 15 2 Ignition Sources The presence of radio terminal equipment in a potentially explosive or flammable dust gas Or vapour can give rise to a number of possible hazards from which ignition might result These include overheating of the radio terminal during use or more likely during fault condi tions In modern mobile radio terminals from reputable manufacturers this is most unlikely to occur under any working conditions when the equipment is fully serviceable and operated correctly The other potential dangers from the use of radio terminal equipment arises from the possibility of sparking Sparks of sufficient energy to cause igni tion may be produced by two quite distinct mech anisms as follows 1 Sparking may occur when contacts are made or broken in circuits carrying electric cur rents or containing sourc
174. ng errors Name of BT OAC displayed for call back if necessary Caller can speak to the EA sooner reducing frustration or panic Address and telephone number is simply confirmed CLI overcomes the problem of spelling pro nunciation and language difficulties Early indication of hoax calls the auto address will reveal if the caller is giving a false address or at a payphone often used to make malicious calls or perhaps a mental hospital As mobile zones decrease in size the auto matic Zone Code may help EAs to question callers who are unsure of their location BT have devised a system which requires an ISDN link from that operator centre which is used to for ward CLI to the EACC On receipt of a call the EAs mobilising system will dial into the BT data base for address information which will be dis played on the EA mobilising screen this will take less than 10 seconds a pilot trial in place at this time is providing the information in one second This is technically a dial up system which will have a small cost implication for the EA but will appear automatically to the EA operator Trials of this system have commenced in the Ambulance service and will shortly commence for the Police The Fire Service CACFOA have decided to wait for the long term strategic solution when once European Standards have been devel oped should allow CLI name address to be passed together Communications and Mobi
175. ng line identity originating callers telephone number in addition to which automatic voice recording is activated If the call has originated from a cellular caller a 5 digit area zone code will also be presented At this time the operator will initiate a search of the customer records database Front Office Directory FRNT using the displayed calling line identity and or zone code If the search is com pleted successfully the operator will have the fol lowing customer details displayed Caller s telephone number Name Address Primary connect to numbers of each Emergency Service Secondary connect to numbers of each Emergency Service Where zone code is used callers name and tele phone number will not be available Where callers details cannot be retrieved from FRNT then the operator will refer to a backup screen on FRNT which will provide the relevant connect to numbers in accordance with the callers STD code presented in the calling line identity or cellular callers given county location If the caller is dialling from a company site the operator will ask the caller to confirm their tele phone number By doing this the operator will have access to a direct dial extension line within the site The calling line identity will often only display as a main switchboard number of the site The operator will advise the caller that they are being connected to the requested Emergency Commun
176. ng throughout the Brigade The following strategy identifies all training requirements and sets out the provisions and guidelines to comply with these requirements Through training of personnel the Brigade will respond to the needs of those it serves by defining training needs and providing the most effective means of fulfilling those needs thereby providing a quality service Training for control personnel has always been hindered by the small numbers of staff available and the need to maintain cover in the Control Centre Training is usually watch related and car ried out at the normal place of work this ensures the maximum number of personnel available For these reasons Brigades should consider the provi sion of a Training Officer and or Watch training days away from control Operator Training should ensure that potential problems for the Operator are kept to a minimum the emphasis on call handling training needs to address primarily the issue of how to handle an individual caller and what precisely to say to callers especially those who appear to be in dan ger At all times the operator must Listen do not make assumptions Be firm but polite Be in control interrupt callers if necessary to ask questions Keep questions simple and unambiguous Repeat address details to confirm they are correct care should be taken not to do this parrot fashion or at the same speed as typ ing This s
177. nless one station is made responsible for its overall control That station is known as the Main Control or simply Control The two fre quency system automatically gives the control station the ability to dominate all other radio scheme users Normally they can only hear control and not each other unless talk through is a perma nent arrangement In the Fire Service the main radio control is invari ably in the centralised mobilising control room for the brigade whilst the radio equipment is located in an adjacent room or building known as the link room Outside is a tower or mast on which the directional link aerials each pointing at a distant hill top site are fitted along with simpler aerials for any fixed mobile equipment in the control complex The control equipment will be duplicated at two or more operating positions the number of such posi tions depending upon the size of the brigade and the number of separate radio channels it uses 10 2 12 Transportable Equipment Mobile equipment in hand portable form can either be in a briefcase haversack or backpack It operates on the mobile transmit and receive fre quencies and contains its own usually recharge able batteries It permits direct contact with control whilst away from a parent vehicle and is an alter native to the personal radios Because of the lower transmitter power imposed by the limited weight for the batteries and
178. nnels and on the number of aerials required on the masts The multi channel capability results in another potential change in linking philosophy Whereas in the past all the individual emergency services have had independent radio systems with perhaps their equipment in different rooms or even different buildings at hill top sites microwave linked sys tems planned on a combined user service area basis to meet all the operational requirements of all sharers Each system will be designed individually taking into consideration Topography of coverage area e g a county or counties Disposition of existing and possibly future hill top sites Disposition of operational controls e g Fire and Police Headquarters etc The number of channels and the routing required by each user Figure 10 10 illustrates a possible linking arrangement with Fire and Police HQs in different parts of the county 10 3 Mobile Transportable and Personal Radio Equipment 10 3 1 Conventions Although the actual use of individual channels is not subject to regulations there are obvious dan gers if there is not disciplined use DCOL 4 88 in Scotland DFM 5 1988 recommends that use of channels should be identified DCOL 6 1992 Item 12 Appendix 1 in Scotland DFM 4 1992 recommends the primary and sec ondary use for each channel Since 1 January 1993 6 UHF at incident chan nels and 2 VHF channels have been available in ad
179. nsure that the frequencies allocated to cellular radio were being used correctly and to co ordinate plans for a European standard This committee was called Groupe Special Mobile the European standard has taken its name from this committee hence GSM In 1987 twelve countries agreed to sign a Memorandum of Understanding to design and implement GSM Work on the technical develop ment of GSM continues through the European Telecommunications Standard Institute ETSI In 1990 the GSM initials were changed to represent the new title Global Systems for Mobile Communications GSM now considered an international standard was developed to ensure compatibility across cel lular networks allowing mobile phones to operate in different countries GSM means there will be an increasing number of overseas customers using their mobiles on UK net works roamers Roaming may cause problems in tracing silent or difficult emergency calls Although the mobile number will inform the British PTO of the caller s country of origin any trace can only be done by dialling the caller back The call will be routed via the country of origin which has cost implications for EAs and PTOs Additionally many roamers have incoming calls barred because the cost of the call from their coun try of origin is charged to their own number It is unlikely a call from a roamer could be traced Therefore it is reasonable to consider these calls un trace
180. nt carelessness clumsi ness and ignorance on the part of the operator In perspective the few occasions when faults will develop in modern personal radio sets are consid ered and the fact that fire service personnel are trained to comply with instructions regarding care of this equipment the occasions when all the above special design features would be needed is small Communications and Mobilising 117 15 6 Radio Use in the Vicinity of Explosives etc Radio transmissions impose a potential ignition or initiation hazard near commercial explosives mil itary ordnance including nuclear weapons and terrorist devices Current guidance to the fire and police services is that no radio transmitting equipment should be used within 10m of the risk that only handheld terminal equipment less than 5 Watt should be used within 10m and 50 metres and that vehicles fitted with mobile radio terminals should not be taken within 50m of the risk unless the radio is Switched off In this context many modern radio terminals for example data capable radios trunked radios and radios using public cellular or public data services are capable of auto transmission Unless the trans mission function can be inhibited by the user such equipment should be switched off if it is necessary to take it into the protected area appropriate for the type e g if it is necessary to take a public cellular radio terminal to within 10m of the haza
181. o gramme Many of the recommendations in FSC 2 1987 remain valid However further and updated rec ommendations are made in FSC 10 1993 Fire Service College Courses Ei H i reS at Ti an ite SOG Teche oT oe Photo HM Fire Service Inspectorate Currently there are three courses specifically focused on Control Personnel The needs of individual fire brigades will be taken into account when selecting candidates for courses at the Fire Service College Junior Control Room Course Operators who through appraisal have been identified as benefiting from attendance Operators who have passed an internal pro motion examination to Leading Fire Control Operator Leading Fire Control Operators and Senior Fire Control Operators who have not previ ously attended the course Senior Control Room Course Leading Fire Control Operators who have successfully completed the Junior Control Room Course Leading Fire Control Operators who have passed an internal promotion examination to Senior Fire Control Operator Leading Fire Control Operators Senior Fire Control Operators and Fire Control Officers who have successfully completed a Junior Control Room course preferably within one year of promotion Control Management Course Fire Control Officers or their deputies who have or may have responsibility for running the brigade Control Centre who have suc ces
182. o etc to a central point for collation and analysis and can be integrated by both man agement information and command and control systems For example a In one brigade bar coded swipe cards are used for access control and resource management for retained personnel These integrated systems have advantages at all management levels and enable control staff to know at any given time the exact number and associated skills of retained personnel on station Brigade managers can analyse levels of response availability of crews and performance of both individuals and stations These systems can be used to replace the use of paper methods to record and administer personnel movements that require payment Swipe card data passed to the Headquarters network makes the automatic payment of fees possible which is espe cially useful in relation to retained personnel Drill and training records can be updated and stored electronically Access control eliminates conventional keys and increases security at remote unmanned stations The system could be provided in a number of dif ferent formats such as bar codes magnetic strip and contact or proximity smart cards which would work in the following way Staff members are issued with I D cards that can be read by remote station terminals each card having been programmed by the Central Processor with a level of entry to selected sites At each site an external device controls access
183. o a sta tion a team or individual as required Radio Frequency Policy Statement FPS 7 refers 10 Fire Service Manual All MG 4 base station transmitters must comply with the Radiocommunications Agency Specifi cation MPT 1325 and Home Office Specification MG 4 Issue 2 Base station aerial heights MUST NOT exceed 10 metres above ground level without the prior approval from RFCPU Communications and Mobilising Chapter Chapter 2 Fire Control Centres The Fire Service Act 1947 Section 1 1 c requires Fire Authorities to secure the provision of efficient arrangements for dealing with calls for the assis tance of the Fire Brigade in case of fire and for summoning members of the Brigade To meet this duty fire authorities usually have a continuously staffed mobilising and communica tions centre equipped with computer based Command amp Control systems to deal with the receipt of emergency calls and the alerting and despatching of fire service resources within its mobilising area Although these are considered to be the core activities of a Control Centre many additional non core duties are performed by con trol personnel as stipulated by the Chief Fire Officer Fire Master All emergency communications for the Fire Service are channelled through the Control Centre which acts as a general communications and infor mation resource for the Fire Brigade It is usually housed in either a Control Suite at Brigade H
184. o an incident of the Fire Service Discipline Regulations 1985 and the ability to respond positively in a disciplined environment and the ability to understand implement and rep resent the Brigade s equal opportunities poli cy in all dealings with members of the public and employees of the Brigade The probationary period may differ from brigade to brigade but on completion it is recommended that a final interview be held to discuss perfor mance and career development Communications and Mobilising 129 APPENDIX 1 continued After the recruit has been attached to a Watch Continuation Training should be carried out pro gressively with the aim of improving skills and knowledge gradually This may take the form of Competency based training Fire Control Operators should be tested at various stages of their employment Training should continue until in the third year Operators consolidate the training received during and since the completion of their probationary period to prepare them for the Fire Control Operator s Qualifying Test The test taken after completion of between 3 to 4 years service should comprise three parts oral written and practical the details of which are in FSC 10 1993 A fully qualified Fire Control Operator should demonstrate the following skills All core skills as detailed in recruit fire con trol operator and A working knowledge ofall mobilising procedur
185. ocal base station at headquarters is connected to the ICCS to provide for fallback control of the main VHF channel when it is operating in talk through mode by operating on the mobile fre quencies This base station may also provide com munication on fireground channels 21 and 22 in the locality of Fire HQ Further levels of fallback protection are also provided by means of a desk mounted mobile radio located at Fire HQ or at an alternative location A local base station at headquarters is also con nected to the ICCS This provides for inter Brigade communications with adjacent county Fire Services 10 2 10 Fixed Mobiles A unit can either be fixed or mobile but it cannot be both However in the radio sense a fixed mobile is a radio transmitter receiver which has all the attributes of a mobile radio it might even be physically identical except that it is installed in a fixed location within a building instead of in a vehicle Such a unit transmits on the mobile transmit frequency and receives on the main sta 86 Fire Service Manual tion transmit frequency Transmissions from such a unit are received by control in exactly the same way as transmissions from true mobiles and apart from an identifying call sign are totally indistin guishable from them Within the context of a mobile radio scheme the expression fixed mobile is therefore quite logical and understandable If a fixed mobile is instal
186. of HOCAP Guidance Notes has been cir culated to Chief Officers these are updated from time to time and circulated as appropriate Site Sharing Shared Police and Fire Service Site Photo Bedfordshire and Luton Fire amp Rescue Service Figure II The Home Office VHF bands are used to support wide area coverage schemes using dominant radio sites Such sites are often shared with other users These may be other Police forces or Fire Brigades as well as private users Often the Police and Fire Brigade will have several radio channels covering one part of the operational area At each site therefore several transmit and receive fre quencies from the same and different bands will be in operation The Home Office Frequency Management Group FMG offers a free service which can advise Police forces and Fire Brigades on the frequency compatibility of site sharing applications FMG utilises specialist software to predict the spurious signals that may be generated when several trans mitters operate on the same site Some of the spuri Communications and Mobilising 9 ous signals may cause interference to co sited base receivers or to mobiles which may be close to the site When considering site sharing applications Communications Officers are strongly advised to seek assistance from their engineering advisors on the likely wind loading of the additional aerials and the resultant overall wind load on the mast The overall capaci
187. of high level programming languages sys tems such as Unix or Microsoft NT fulfil these requirements In addition processors are required to provide the communication interface from the mobilising system to the bearers and hence the station ends Resilience is provided by incorporating redundancy within the system Dual servers are provided one operating as a hot stand by 1 e the secondary server is continually being updated in real time by the master server so that in the event of failure of the master server the secondary server is able to take over the function of the master server The secondary server may be in a different location within the same site 1 e a different building within a control complex This builds in some additional resilience in the event of system failure to the main control room The communications processors are also duplicated but as these do not incorporate dynamic databases both are operating togeth er but are able to mobilise the brigade inde pendently in the event of failure of one of them As the work stations are in effect dumb terminals failure of one workstation processor will not jeopardise the mobilising system but will only render that workstation inoperative Again it is possible that the com munications processors are in different loca tions within the same site 2 Distributed Processing Workstation processors are connected by a local area net work but in t
188. oint or any remote location The CCTV system consists of tripod mounted colour cameras a maglight camera bodyworn camera and ISG thermal imaging camera as well as a remote control decoder microwave transmitter and a control case The control case is mounted in the ICLJ video rack to receive and process the Communications and Mobilising 71 Figure 9 1 Detail showing camera mounting position The transmitter can just be seen under the rim of the helmet The camera sees approximately half the normal field of normal vision Photo BedfordshireFire and Rescue Service Figure 9 2 BA wearer equipped with high definition helmet mounted colour camera The combined battery pack and control module mounted on the waistbelt permits changeover to thermal images from the TIC The microwave antenna and transmitter are mounted on the helmet to ensure both protection and height for better image transmission Photo Bedfordshire fire and Rescue Service 72 Fire Service Manual ry a Figure 9 3 One of the original tripod mounted hard wired cameras These cameras are high definition colour but do not have a zoom facility Both new and not so new technology work well together Photo BedfordshireFireandRescurService signals from the microwave cameras It can oper ate independently of the ICU The bodyworn high resolution colour camera about 50cm long and Icm square is mounted under the right rim of a helmet A microwav
189. ol operator and when it is selected the incoming speech from any mobile is turned round and re transmitted It is therefore received by all other mobiles in exactly the same way as speech from the control operator Aerial relay Receiver Transmitter OUT STATIONS Sl Communications and Mobilising The control operator can of course still hear all the mobile transmissions and retains full control of the scheme When talk through is selected pip tone is automatically inhibited either completely or whenever speech is received from a mobile and there may be an increase in the level of background noise and some degradation of speech quality which may be noticed because of the link up between the incoming and outgoing channels Two frequency working provides a measure of security because unauthorised listeners can only hear one way normally the outgoing transmis sions from control to mobiles However in fire brigade communications security is a lower priori ty than speed and it is usually more important for two mobiles to talk to one another Talk through provides that speed and some fire brigades choose to operate their schemes permanently on talk through 10 2 3 Wide Area Coverage This implies that radio communication is required over an area greater than that which can be served by a single base station no matter how favourable its location may be All county fire briga
190. omputers Ltd by the Fire and Emergency Planning Directorate as part of a Research and Development programme managed by HM Fire Service Inspectorate The contract was awarded in October 1994 and ran for two years The findings of this consultancy were published in DCOL 8 1997 in Scotland as DFM 8 1997 7 1 AVLS Technology An Automatic Vehicle Location System has the capability to report vehicle positions to a central control centre either at regular intervals or on demand or a combination of both Several tech nologies are used world wide although in the U K two systems predominate Systems based on GPS Global Positioning System utilise time signals received from a con stellation of 24 satellites moving through precisely defined orbits to calculate the position of GPS receiving equipment located in the vehicle Timing signals are transmitted by the satellites on an almost continuous basis and hence the vehicle position is always known providing sufficient satellites are in view of the GPS receiver A mini mum of three satellites ideally four to eliminate certain minor inaccuracies must be in view of the receiver for it to calculate its position A terrestrial based system as supplied by Securicor Datatrak Ltd uses a series of low fre quency radio base stations to distribute a matrix of radio signals from which a Datatrak receiver can calculate its position using a form of triangulation In most places both systems can de
191. one additional frequency possibly two whilst an addi tional operational channel will require a complete additional set of frequencies Only two of the fre quency channels supporting each operational channel are used to actually communicate with the mobiles the main outgoing and incoming fre quencies shown as f a and f b in Figure 10 8 The remainder are link frequencies shown as L1 to L6 in Figure 10 8 and they serve to carry speech on a point to point basis between the control sta tion and the hill top sites Until very recently the frequencies used for link channels have always been in either the VHF band or the lower part of the UHF 2 band An obvious disadvantage is that frequency channels which are ideally suited for mobile communication on a broadcast basis are being used for point to point links and with the intense competition and demand for additional mobile channels that waste of mobile channels can no longer be toler ated To release currently used VHF and UHF link channels for mobile use regulations now require that all new point to point links shall immediately operate in the microwave part of the frequency spectrum and that all currently used VHF and UHF link channels shall be moved to microwave as part of a rolling plan Definition The term microwave is one which has no precise and universally accepted definition which fits in with the generally accepted frequency and wa
192. onnect to num bers of each Emergency Service Control Centre Emergency calls on this network will almost always originate from a railway location although it is possible for the switchboard to receive calls from non railway locations In this situation loca tional information is unlikely to be found on the TODS database and the RBRT Operator will endeavour to obtain enough information such as the nearest town etc to correctly route the call If the EA primary number is unobtainable or not answered within 30 seconds the RBRT Operator will try the secondary number If this is not answered or is unobtainable then the call is passed to the Civil Police The number given by the RBRT operator is an ex directory emergency ringback number RBRT will remain on the line until the EA opera tor has all the required information and the call is complete All details of emergency calls are recorded on an Emergency Call Record Form which is kept for one year as well as recorded on audio equipment and kept for one month 4 6 1 Payphones The card payphones situated on trains for public use are not part of the ETD network These phones are GSM phones which accept prepaid smart phonecard and credit cards GSM public payphones are also installed on some domestic coaches Scottish and cross channel ferries and Eurostar trains Phones on the cross channel services have the added facility of roaming onto the French and Belgium GSM net
193. onnel should also have access to a library of training modules that detail the learning outcomes required for control related subjects or functions Control personnel managers at all levels should also be part of a process of continuous assessment of their role conducted by their line manager s Further guidance on training for competence is contained in the competence framework Fire Service Circular 15 1997 Communications and Mobilising 133 APPENDIX 2 List of relevant DCOLs DFMs in Scotland and FSCs DCOL DFM 4 1988 5 1998 6 1992 4 1992 4 1995 4 1995 6 1995 5 1995 8 1995 6 1995 6 1996 6 1996 9 1996 8 1996 8 1997 8 1997 1 1998 2 1998 FSC3 1975 FSC15 1997 134 Fire Service Manual Acknowledgements HM Fire Service Inspectorate is indebted to all who helped with the provision of information and expertise to assist the revision of this volume in particular Bedfordshire and Luton Fire amp Rescue Service Buckinghamshire Fire amp Rescue Service Cheshire Fire Brigade Cornwall County Fire Brigade Devon Fire and Rescue Service GEC Marconi Hertfordshire Fire amp Rescue Service Kent Fire Brigade London Fire Brigade Surrey Fire amp Rescue Service West Sussex Fire Brigade Radio Frequency and Communications Planning Unit Home Office ASAP BT BT Tallis Consultancy Cable and Wireless Cellnett Fortek Kingston Communications Marconi Multitone One 2 One Orange Simoco Racal BRT C S Todd
194. ontrol Centres vary from Brigade to Brigade and many of them overlap The following list gives examples of skills and responsibilities within each rank Control Operator Core Skills Receive emergency calls Give advice to emergency callers as required Identify and dispatch appropriate fire brigade resources to incidents if necessary receiving guidance from senior ranks Be familiar with the location of fire stations and their station ground Keep officers informed of incidents occur rences as required Liaise with other authorities and resources to keep them informed of incidents and request their assistance if necessary Answer radio messages relay radio messages to appliances and officers and act on infor mation obtained Deputise for Leading Fire Control Operators in their absence subject to Brigade require ments and competence of the Operator Test and inspect equipment held in control and the secondary control carrying out such first line maintenance as appropriate Answer non emergency switchboard calls out of office hours and direct advise callers Answer non emergency calls from station personnel and act on information received Complete incident statistics Work as part of a team and react appropriate ly as instructed and directed by officers Ensure that levels of personal conduct are maintained in accordance with the standards prescribed in the Fire Service Discipline Regulations 198
195. ormation System Display Photo Bedfordshire and Luton Fire and Rescure Service or gas pipe lines or any other features that have a significance to fire service operations Using the facilities of word processing and other software it is possible to display information from the inspection of premises as text with drawings photographs diagrams and even video clips all linked and accessed from the map presentation As with the resource display this screen of informa tion may then be displayed at the operator s VDU or projected on to a wall display and because the data is held electronically may also be transmitted to other computer systems including those on appliances or special vehicles Brigades are able to obtain maps from Ordnance Survey through Service Level Agreements 5 4 5 Automatic Fire Alarm AFA Terminations The majority of manual AFA terminations were disconnected when Control Centres migrated to computer aided mobilising systems However AFA activity can be properly supported by com puter technology Such a system is currently in use by some Fire Services which act as a collector sta tion to commercial premises Communications and Mobilising 53 5 4 6 Secondary Control Facilities Control mobilising systems incorporate a number of levels of resilience Duplicated computer sys tems and fallback bearers each add their own lev els of security to the system as does the ability to alert crews locally from
196. ot This can be achieved in a number of different ways In most cases the EA will take the details of the call and pass the information on to col leagues in the correct authority The EA operator may recall the Operator back into circuit and request that the call is passed to another EACC This may be a dif ferent emergency service The EA operator may advise the Operator of the correct EA to handle the call The Operator will then look up the appropriate connect to number If it is not possible for the EA to advise the correct connect to number or even the correct county then the Operator will instigate a call trace proce dure as described resulting in Orange providing the location where the cellphone accessed the Orange network The Operator will then re route the cellphone customer to the applicable EA The ultimate responsibility for redirecting the call to the correct EA however will rest with the operating company who will take all rea sonable steps to do so 4 9 The satellite telephone World wide communications cover is now a com mon form of communications which is readily available to all by way of the Inmarsat Phone which is capable of transmitting both voice and text data It would be true to say however that Figure 4 6 Satellite telephone Photo Inmarsat until recently many brigades felt that such systems were out of their reach due to the high cost factor in providing the equi
197. ounds very inefficient and does not inspire confidence Reassure the caller when necessary but do not state that the Fire Brigade is on the way until sufficient information has been obtained Communications and Mobilising 12 for crews to locate the incident Informing a caller that appliances are en route may prompt them to hang up prematurely and result in a delay locating the incident Remain calm do not reflect panic or anger Keep the tone of voice normal even if having to speak louder Speak clearly Be prepared to rephrase questions to obtain details Do not use Fire Brigade terminology Do not hesitate or tell the caller to hold on or bear with me or use any other phrases or slang that may indicate lack of confidence or not being in control of the situation The techniques involved can be broadly cate gorised as reactive or pro active The operator can be entirely reactive if the caller provides the necessary information in the correct order and without prompting What is much more likely is that the caller will at the very least need to be prompted particularly to provide the required information in the order need ed to complete the call taking screen format Such an approach is both reactive because it responds to the caller and pro active in the sense that it takes some measure of control over the human interface Where the caller is in danger however the
198. out being able to participate or will be able to speak out with out knowing whether anyone is receiving Y Duplicated Tx Base et Stations a Fix Hilltop site interface To hilltop sites 6 y Voting ins aad Main ch s 7 Tel amp System ch amp ch 21 22 amp Control Node Local Control Ax et TC Le ICCS Control Centre 85 Communications and Mobilising Voice Infrastructure Figure 10 9 shows a typical voice communication system infrastructure which comprises a number of Control Officer operating positions each of which is provided with a headset and microphone a loudspeaker and means of making a radio chan nel selection The operating positions provide the Control Operator interfaces to the Integrated Communication Control System ICCS which in turn provides access to individual radio channels and also to telephone circuits The Main Fire Service voice channel is broadcast on low band VHF from a number of hill top radio sites at each of which is located either a single or duplicated Base Station Each Base Station is con nected to the control site by means of either a microwave link network or by a private wire cir cuit At the control site the receive and transmit signals are brought together in a Voting unit The main purpose of the voter is to accept all of the receive signals from the hill top sites and select vote the best signal to pass to the ICCS A l
199. oved by establishing ideal locations for base stations as part of incident pre planning Connecting cables could be pre laid and base stations could even be installed at appropriate risk sites Communications and Mobilising Chapter Chapter 15 Potential hazards of using radio equipment IN FLAMMABLE ATMOSPHERES NEAR EXPLOSIVES OR IN HOSPITALS Special precautions are necessary when working in areas where a potential ignition or explosion haz ard exists These could be due to the presence of flammable dusts gases or vapours such as in oil refineries petrol storage depots some factories and commercial premises coal mines etc The introduction of electrical or electronic equipment such as a radio by firefighters to such environ ments may constitute an ignition hazard Where such environments are known to exist or are suspected then the electrical equipment needs to be safe for such use This means that such equipment should be designed in such a way that it does not present a hazard and that it should be cer tified accordingly There are a number of design concepts for achieving this of which the most com mon for radio terminals is that of Intrinsic Safety Any equipment designed to be safe in such environments is generically described as explosion protected Additional precautions are also necessary when using radio transmitters in the vicinity of explo sives ignition hazards or other devices
200. pment together with the unit cost of calls The situation has changed quite dra matically over the past few years in that satellite communications is now considered an every day form of transmitting data The present day equip ment is both readily available at a reasonable cost for its provision and use Such a system of communicating has been employed by some UK brigades in the past most notably when a system was obtained on loan and used successfully by members of UK Fire Brigade Search and Rescue Teams whilst in Armenia fol lowing the earthquake disaster Some Fire Brigades in Europe regularly use satellite tele phone systems as an acceptable form of communi cation and their specialist rescue units carry it as part of their normal equipment The modern range of satellite communications systems offers a light and compact package of equipment which can be set up and ready for use in a matter of minutes It is also true to say that it is a reliable form of communications which is sim ple to use from anywhere in the world 4 10 Public Warning and Information by Telephone PWIT Nowadays more then 93 of households have a telephone and it is seen as an essential mechanism for communicating with customers colleagues friends and relatives as well as the emergency ser vices Telephones are increasingly used to obtain a wide range of information why not use them to disseminate information as well There has always been a nee
201. pment is authorised to use Examples are Transmit power The maximum transmitted power is normally that which enables the user s Operational requirement to be met This limits the risk of interference to other users and allows re use of channels and Height above ground The height of the aer ial above ground may have to be limited to that required to give the required coverage Chief Fire Officers who require additional radio frequencies on any equipment must 1 if access to a channel of a neighbouring brigade is required seek the permission of the relevant Chief Fire Officer forwarding the approval response to RFCPU for the frequencies and channel to be included on the schedule and 2 if access to any other Home Office managed channel is required obtain written agreement from RFCPU prior to implementation Local Authority Chief Fire Officers are authorised to allow access to VHF and UHF incident channels used within their Authorities area by any mem ber of any fire brigade providing assistance with fires in accordance with Section 2 of the Fire Services Act 1947 or to secure the discharge of an authority s function under Section 12 of the Act subject to the conditions set out in Radio Frequency Policy Statement FPS 16 Interference to Home Office Frequency Assignments The Home Office allocated radio spectrum is used exclusively for the assignment of frequencies for use Communications and Mobilising
202. position has access to all the facilities Communications and Mobilising 47 provided by the line concentrator units such as call monitoring by any other position intercom and indication of line state and extra facilities such as a system database recording and playback facili ties and configuration of both telephone and radio facilities Communications switches either have an integrat ed call logging facility which can be accessed through an RS232 port to an engineering terminal PC or separate printer or the ability to connect an independent call logger These PC based systems provide flexible report generation and the ability to customise information presentation of all tele phone and radio traffic Open interface capabilities give the flexibility to connect external devices including CCTV lighting systems door entry mechanisms and alarm systems 5 2 9 Automatic Call Distribution An additional function of call handling equipment is Automatic Call Distribution ACD Incoming emergency and administrative calls are automati cally presented to available operators on a highest priority basis Each call in the queue is presented to the first operator that releases a line and is avail able to accept the next incoming call An electron ic tone is transmitted to alert the operator that they have be allocated a call When the call has been completed the operator is allowed a pre defined amount of time in which to carry out other
203. produces the connect to number for each of the emergency services Mis routing of cellular calls generally happens because of the reasons stated earlier It is also not possible to impose the same boundaries as with a land line system this is especially apparent in rural regions where one transmitter may service quite a large area With the growth of the Cellular indus try and zones becoming smaller the occurrence of long distance mis routing is likely to become less common The mobile companies recognise the difficulties incurred by the Emergency Services when a call is mis routed To keep these mis routes to a mini mum they require the emergency authorities to inform the mobile companies when a mis route has taken place to enable then to investigate the circumstances surrounding the call The final responsibility for the overall correct rout ing of 999 112 emergency calls rests with the cel lular companies 36 Fire Service Manual 4 8 1 Name and Address Information of Mobile Callers The licence agreements of Cellnet and Vodafone restrict these companies from dealing directly with subscribers their services can only be bought through Service Providers Although EA s require 24 hour access to sub scriber records the records of Cellnet and Vodafone customers who have purchased their mobile telephone from an independent Service Provider are not always available on a 24 hour basis The Service Providers are not obligate
204. ps because of dementia who have called the CAC do not realise that the situation requires one of the emergency services In practice Community Alarm Centres filter out many calls which might otherwise have led to an unjustified 999 call There are approximately 350 CACs in the UK and the emergency services will regularly receive calls from them CAC operators are in a unique position to help emergency service control staff if a call is routed via a CAC because they are trained and experienced in dealing with emergencies are trained and used to dealing with vulnera ble people have detailed information about the person in need of help will have detailed information on the address of the emergency and on emergency access to sheltered housing schemes which can be passed to crews attending the fire can reassure the individual and liaise with them until the brigade arrives and can alert and liaise with other agencies and carers that might need to be involved ASAP and CACFOA have agreed procedures for filtering and passing emergency calls from sheltered housing schemes to the fire service Should the caller require the fire service one of three procedures will be used l CAC operators will dial 999 for emergency calls to addresses within their own area In addition to the name and telephone number of the control centre and the address of the incident the CAC operator may give a refer ence num
205. pter Chapter 11 Radio Alerting System Currently Brigades use alerting systems to the Home Office MG4 specification This forms the final link in the overall mobilising system The simple schematic below indicates the system ele ments involved Mobilising and Communications components of the overall system are dealt with in detail else Where in this publication But in the interest of understanding the Alerter system itself a brief out line may be of help The Mobilising system contains a large amount of detail covering the whole of the Brigade and this is available to Fire Control Officers when assessing the operational needs of any particular incident Having determined a station or stations to be turned out the detail concerning the incident loca tion the appliances to attend and if Wholetime the operation of sounders or if Retained the oper ation of alerters is passed to the Communications Processor The Communications Processor makes use of a further Home Office Protocol called GD92 which specifies the way the processor works and the Figure 11 1 Radio alert ing system to the Home Office MG4 specifica facilities it must provide It will normally have a number of communication links known as bear ers between Control and the stations and will use these on the basis of laid down preference and availability The types of bearer available to such systems can change as technology makes th
206. rawn from brigades representing the variations of size risks geographical make up etc in the UK The Standards of Competence should be used by all control staff to evaluate their own performance and to identify personal devel opment needs The Standards of Competence were accredited by the National Council for Vocational Qualifications NCVQ at Level 3 in the national framework and have been made available to Brigades by the Fire Services Awarding Body FSAB The National Council for Vocational Qualifications is now known as the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority QCA The National Vocational Qualification provides the first national qualification which has been specifically designed for fire brigade control per sonnel Brigades who do not wish to introduce NVQ s can still use the Standards of Competence based training 132 Fire Service Manual Training for competence enables everyone in the Control Centre to demonstrate through a system of assessments against the prescribed standard that they can consistently and competently per form their work embracing the safe person con cept Training for competence provides a framework that offers A systematic method of managing and organ ising the development delivery and evalua tion of the control personnel training provid ed by the brigade An objective assessment process that can be used to consistently measure the acquisition of knowledge skill
207. rd 15 7 Radio Use in Vicinity of Retail Petrol Stations etc Current guidance to the fire and police services is that similar restrictions to those applicable to the use of radio terminals in the vicinity of explo sives should be applied in respect of retail petrol stations petroleum transfer stations and oil depots 118 Fire Service Manual 15 8 Radio Use in the Vicinity of Air Bags Because of the potential but remote danger of actuating an air bag in a vehicle which has been involved in a road traffic accident in which an air bag has not actuated no radio terminal should be used to transmit a message within 10m of the vehicle Additionally to avoid the remote possibility of unwanted actuation no handheld radio terminal or handheld cellular radio terminal should be used inside a vehicle equipped with an airbag unless it is connected to an aerial system external to the vehicle 15 9 Radio Use in the Vicinity of Medical Devices There is a potential hazard that radio transmissions may have unwanted effects of medical devices No fire service handheld radio can be considered as being safe to use in radio sensitive areas of hos pitals nor can any safe distance be recommend ed Accordingly handheld radios should only be used for transmission in hospital buildings in exceptional circumstances and where the circum stances are unavoidable If a handportable radio has been used then this should be reported locally
208. rd at the audio output In the outgoing direction hilltop to mobile different tones can be selected by the control operator and different mobiles or groups of mobiles will respond to different tones This provides what is known as selective calling in which only selected mobiles will receive the transmission When CTCSS is fitted to inhibit hilltop radio receivers remote technical arrangements must be fitted to allow Control to switch off the brigade s CTCSS This arrangement is necessary to allow non CTCSS fitted mobiles to access the brigade s radio scheme upon such a request from the non CTCSS fitted brigade Control 92 Fire Service Manual 10 3 10 Transportable Equipment Transportable in this context as distinct from mobile or personal means equipment which is completely self contained with its own batteries and aerial which can thus be transported from place to place and used anywhere but which is usually set down rather than operated whilst being carried as is the norm for personal equipment The distinction is however somewhat vague and some transportable equipment is certainly capable of being used on the move as is illustrated by the hand portable see Figure 10 2 The standard equipment has a 99 channel capabil ity and the first twenty channels are brigade allo cated in the same way as a standard mobile It also has the same single frequency capability using Channel 21 or 22 It has all
209. re may be a need to adopt a fully pro active tech nique by Providing relevant fire safety advice aimed at minimising the hazard to the caller and Providing reassurance to the caller Fire Control Operators should have some basic knowledge of fire survival techniques The first priority must always be the mobilisation of appli ances followed by the standard fire safety advice GET OUT AND STAY OUT 128 Fire Service Manual Only when the caller or the situation clearly requires further intervention by the Operator to enable survival should additional guidance be offered This guidance should be limited to stan dard fire survival advice suitably adapted to the situation following an assessment based on infor mation obtained from the caller The details obtained from a caller have to be as informative as is necessary to enable crews to locate incidents as quickly as possible A few extra seconds questioning the caller may save minutes in actually locating the incident Full guidance on Training in Emergency Call Handling Techniques and Fire Survival Guidance is contained in the Fire Control Personnel Training package issued to complement Fire Service Circular 10 1993 Training recommended by the Home Office is pro mulgated to brigades through courses at the Fire Service College or as Fire Service Circulars which recommend a framework from which individual fire authorities can compile their own training pr
210. red to as Personal Communi cations Network PCN use BT s facilities to con nect 999 112 calls to Emergency Authorities Control Centres EACCs All 999 112 calls gen erated from the Orange digital network will be routed to one of six BT Operator Assistance Centres from one of thirteen Orange switches each of which has a minimum of two routes into BT s network Routing design within Orange ensures that 999 112 calls are sent to BT at the originating switch first followed by alternative routing throughout the total network This guaran tees delivery of a 999 112 call in all cases barring a major network disaster within Orange The principle behind Personal Communications Networks PCNs is the multiple re use of valu able radio channels The country is divided up into a series of cells each served by its own low pow ered transmitter receiver base station Each of these base stations is assigned a set of frequencies differing from those assigned to adjacent cells The resulting pattern can be repeated enabling radio channels to be used again but geographically far i A CUSTOMER ae WITH A FIXED CONNECTIONS TO OTHER PCN PHONES a CELLULAR PHONES aT a INTERNATIONAL CALLS F P LOCAL EXCHANGE ONE 2 ONE i PCN M TELEPHONE EXCHANGE PCN BASE STATION Figure 4 5a enough away to prevent interference The very nature of the provision of radio telephone communication means that users do not necessar
211. rements have howev er remained unchanged and are identified in the 1947 Fire Services Act This is still as relevant today as it was when first mandated to fire author ities in 1947 to secure efficient arrangements for dealing with calls for the assistance of the fire brigade in case of fire and for summoning mem bers To ensure that fire services communications effi ciency is maintained to the highest level requires the introduction of modern technology systems coupled with frequent reviews to brigades prac tises and procedures Changes in equipment and procedures become inevitable because either equipment becomes obsolete or technical main tenance support is exhausted or overly expensive New equipment often has advantages over what it replaces in that it generally incorporates more functionality and flexibility thus affording greater opportunities for changes in procedures and practises It is an impossible task to bring the reader fully up to date with the technology that is both available and continually evolving or indeed to indicate that which may be available in the future This book is written in non technical terms and aimed primari ly at covering the operational and functional com munications requirements of the professional fire fighter This by necessity encompasses all the communicating elements from that of the origi nating caller to the incident s conclusion via the brigade Control station
212. required is simpler than that needed for duplex working Single frequency Single frequency radio equipment is designed to transmit and receive on the same frequency Clearly such equipment can only operate in the simplex mode and in such equipment the receiving portion is always effectively switched off when the transmitter is activated Figure 10 6 Principles of single frequency simplex working Transmitter OUT STATIONS Single frequency working is not used in main VHF radio schemes between brigade control rooms and mobiles but single frequency personal radio equipment is commonly used by fire brigades for direct person to person working over short dis tances both with VHF and UHF Figure 10 6 Home Office supplied VHF vehicle fitted radios are capable of operating on the two VHF channels allocated to manpack working Double frequency or two frequency Double or two frequency equipment is radio equipment which is designed to receive on one frequency and transmit on another and all fire brigade main radio schemes operate on this prin ciple Figure 10 7 The need to occupy two chan nels of the limited available spectrum is a disad vantage but that is outweighed by the advantages it affords Two frequency working permits duplex opera tion but in practice all fire brigade mobiles are two frequency simplex mainly because of the advantages of simplex already given The advantages of two frequency wor
213. rigade controls were responsible for plotting logging of all calls with associated paper work fire reports accident reports and statistics but not at any time talking to the originator of the call Improvements in the telephone network had revo lutionised brigades The introduction of a radio network was the next step towards improving brigade wide communications The radio scheme was sometimes shared with the Police provided fire control asked nicely and the police were not too busy the scheme would be opened to allow for transmission or sometimes the scheme was shared with another brigade Police and Fire Brigade radio schemes were the responsibility of the Home Office Communications Branch later the Directorate of Telecommunications and remained so for many years These early systems although now construed as relatively primitive were to further enhance the capabilities of the service Once each Fire Brigade had their own private mobile radio networks it became more practical to operate the radio from one location It was one more step towards a single control Contact with fire stations was made by land line and part timers or retained firemen were called in by housebells or sirens alerters for retained fire fighters were not introduced until 1968 Control rooms were now capable of reliable con tact with stations by means of the K system and subsequently among others the VF system A and private wires
214. rigades should ensure that private contractors are made aware of the requirement for their work to be covered by a separate T amp D licence Licenses for other frequency bands The Police and Fire Comprehensive Radio licence does not authorise use of any frequencies other than those in the Home Office frequency bands It is therefore necessary to apply for a separate licence from the Radiocommunications Agency for each channel A separate licence fee is payable for each licence Use of Radio Channels in an Emergency No automatic right exists for any authority or per son s to use any frequency not allocated to them However in specific circumstances e g an emer gency or for carrying out tests associated with maintenance and repair activity such authority may be prior issued in writing or verbally If an emergency situation exists such person s must at all times utilise correct voice procedures which specifically ensure that the call sign of the correct licensee is used with specific suffixes allocated to approved external users Licence Schedule The licence schedule consists of a number of pages relating to every base station site used one per page as well as all mobile and fixed equipment used within each brigade The detail contained within the schedule relates to the technical parame ters associated with every base station site used by the brigade and its mobile equipment and the radio frequencies the equi
215. rmit an investigation prior to the transmission to the RMC A TDU should however only be used if there is a false alarm problem that cannot be addressed by other means A TDU is not acceptable in hospitals and in other premises it should only be provided after consultation with the brigade and the insurer The performance of the alarm transmission link may be expressed by the probability of an alarm call being received at the Brigade Control Centre within a specified time The time of transmission is the period expressed in seconds between the start of the transmission of the alarm signal from the premises and the point in time of connection to the fire brigade control Ideally this should not exceed 60 seconds 6 1 Transmission Methods and Reliability Issues As is always the case economics is a relevant fac tor which directly affects system planning and since highly reliable communication systems cost more than less reliable ones there are a variety of systems in use throughout the country Mention has been made of Fire Alarm Systems FAS being connected via remote manned centres RMC to local authority fire brigade Control Centres There are in a few areas facilities for Communications and Mobilising 57 FAS to be connected directly to lire brigade Control Centres for instance Merseyside Fire Brigade monitor systems within the Merseyside area Devon Fire and Rescue Service collect signals from data tran
216. rvice Manual Group Fire Control Officer In some cases an FCO or GFCO may also hold other references within the Brigade These may include Personnel Officer Communications Officer or for example in larger brigades the Watch Officers may hold the rank of GFCO The tasks listed below may be the responsibility of an FCO in a brigade which does not employ a GFCO Responsible for the overall management of the Control Centre its personnel equipment and all other resources to ensure the effective economic and efficient operation of the Control Centre in line with Brigade policies and procedures Attend control during a major incident or spate conditions and take strategic command and provide support as appropriate Keep Control personnel informed of Brigade policies procedures and standards Monitor the welfare and motivation of per sonnel whilst constantly seeking to promote and improve teamwork and efficiency Establish an effective working relationship with Control personnel Monitor all Control Centre personnel in respect of performance conditions of service and training where appropriate Development and planning of mobilising pro cedures Development and planning of control station communication systems Maintain an efficient and effective Command and Control centre within allocated budgets provided Principal Fire Control Officer The Principal Fire Control Officer rank is u
217. s attitude and understand ing achieved by personnel and teams An objective assessment process that can be used to measure consistently and continu ously the application of knowledge skills attitude and understanding performed by per sonnel and teams in the workplace Brigades can use the functional outcomes con tained in these standards to role map the work and training needs of all watch related control per sonnel In total there are 22 functions and 57 ele ments used to describe the full range of work car ried out by control personnel Training provided for control personnel should be structured and delivered to provide each individ ual with the knowledge skills and attitude required to fulfil the functions contained in their role map Once the individual has demonstrated that she or he can perform to the standard described in the functional outcomes she or he can be described as competent in acquisition In order to ensure that competence is continuously and consistently being applied a process of contin uous work place assessments should be provided Assessments should be conducted by Watch officers who should routinely assess their staff to ensure that there is a consistent demonstration of competence The Standards of Competence should be used for this purpose and if training needs are identified APPENDIX 1 the individual should be given the necessary train ing guidance and support Control pers
218. s sited strategically throughout the build ing These broadcast routine and domestic announcements A number of Brigades now use improved types of remotely controlled public address systems on whole time stations for alerting crews and the broadcasting of turnout instructions as well as rou Figure 5 7 Station Equipment Graphic Fortex Bearers to Station tine announcements A number of different tones can be sent over the systems that enable crews to distinguish the type of message being broadcast Station Bells Alert Tones A system of alarm bells tones usually referred to as turnout bells has from time immemorial been part of the normal equipment of fire stations It 1s used primarily for alerting personnel the turnout instruc tions being passed by teleprinter or telephone On some stations a simple system of one or more circuits of bells is used for alerting personnel in all parts of the premises 5 5 5 Turnout Lighting Fire stations both those continually staffed and retained usually have automatic facilities for switching on selected lights to illuminate those parts of the station that are used by personnel responding to calls in the hours of darkness These lights are generally controlled via a relay box which in turn is connected to the mobilising computer Following operation they may be on a time switch and stay on for a fixed period of time or may be reset manually Station Equipment M
219. s up to 50 GHz for very short 5 kms links 1000 Hertz Hz is called 1 kiloHertz kHz 10 000 Hz 10 kHz 1000 kHz 1 MegaHertz MHz 1000 MHz 1 GigaHertz GHz Thus 2 000 000 000 Hertz is more compactly called either 2000 MHz or 2 GHz The following are two worked examples using the above formulae If a transmission has a wavelength of 4 metres what is the frequency Velocity constant Frequency Hertz Wavelength where Velocity 300 000 000 metres per second Wavelength 4 metres Thus 300 000 000 Frequency 75 000 000 Hz or 75 MHz If a transmission has a frequency of 450 MHz which is a similar frequency to the Fireground channels what is the wavelength Velocity constant Wavelength Frequency where Velocity 300 000 000 metres per second Frequency 450 MHz or 450 000 000 Hz Thus Wavelength 300 000 000 metres 0 88 metres 450 000 000 Figure 10 2 The electro magnetic spectrum Type of Radiation Frequencies Radio Waves Micro Waves Red Microwave Ovens 30 300 3000 KHz 3 30 300 3000 MHz The result is that the higher the frequency the shorter the wavelength For radio waves wave length is measured in metres and frequency is measured in Cycles per second for which a spe cial name Hertz is used Figure 10 2 shows how the various forms of elec tro magnetic wave occupy different parts of the range of frequencies which are known as the elec tro m
220. safeguards are to exclude the radio terminal or the vehicle on which it is mounted from the hazardous environment The risk from any fixed mobile radio terminal equipment should be minimal since it is expected that any potential hazard should have already taken into consideration before siting is decided However some brigades employ transportable ter minal equipment which may be used for example as temporary controls or talk through stations for special purposes Such terminal equipment gener ally has transmitter power of 5 25 Watts and therefore the potential risk is comparable to that of a vehicle installation but it may be used in loca tions inaccessible to vehicles This category of equipment should not be overlooked in any hazard assessment or the drafting of relevant orders For relatively low powered handheld radio termi nal equipment typically less than IWatt the max imum radiated power is usually insufficient to cre ate induced currents in adjacent conductors Potential ignition hazards with handheld radio ter minals are therefore limited to the development of dangerously high temperatures and sparking caused by making or breaking electrical circuits High temperatures are only likely to exist in fault conditions e g by a component failure or break down of insulation and steps can be taken to pre vent internal sparking that has sufficient energy to ignite a flammable or explosive dust gas or vapour
221. se of all assignments in the Home Office bands Represents the Home Office and its user ser vices within the national frequency planning forum Provides representation through the Radio communications Agency at international fre quency management forums 6 Fire Service Manual Promulgation of policy regarding the use of the department s band allocations through the publication of a series of Radio Frequency Policy Statements Represents Home Office user services on DTI and National committees 1 e Civil and Land Mobile Committee CLMRC and Microwave Fixed Links Committee MFLC Technical assessment of applications to share Police and Fire Service hilltop and other sites to determine the potential risk of inter Assist Home Office user services with inter ference problems The Police and Fire Comprehensive Radio Licence In accordance with the Wireless Telegraphy Act 1949 all users of radio frequencies must be licensed by the Secretary of State The organisa tion responsible for issuing radio licences or authority to use frequencies is the Radiocommuni cations Agency The Police and Fire Comprehensive Radio Licence has been designed to cover all Home Office managed frequencies assigned to a particu lar user Any assignments that a user holds which are in civil bands will need to be licensed sepa rately The only exception is Citizen Band CB channels which are covered by the Pol
222. sed in the discharge of his her responsibili ty for fire by the Central Fire Brigades Advisory Council CFBAC This council was set up under Section 29 of the Fire Services Act 1947 and is normally chaired by a Home Office minister and includes representatives of the local authorities the fire service and other interested organisations A similar council advises the Secretary of State for Scotland The CFBAC is in turn advised by a number of standing committees and ad hoc committees are also established from time to time to consider or review particular policies By agreement between the Home Secretary and the Secretary of State for Scotland these standing committees are joint com mittees which advise both the Council for England and Wales and the Council for Scotland The Chairman of the Central Fire Brigades Advisory Council is usually the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State with specific responsibil ity for fire service matters The subject matter in this section of the manual is dealt with by the Jomt Strategy Committee on Operational Practices and Technology Fire Service communication issues are also discussed within the Chief and Assistant Chief Fire Officers Association CACFOA committee structure Communications and Computing Policy Committee C amp CPC at Chief Officer level District Communications Working Parties at Control and Communication Officer level Home Office 999 Liaison Committee The
223. sfully completed a Senior Control Room course Refresher training Refresher training may also be available for personnel who have not attended a course at the Fire Service College for five years Brigade Based Initial Recruit Training All recruits should be given a one or two day induction course which should include information on Health amp Safety Equal Opportunities Representative Bodies sickness reporting and leave entitlement This is followed by a training APPENDIX 1 course lasting a minimum of three weeks which may consist of classroom day duties During train ing the recruit should be considered non opera tional The recruit should be issued with training notes for guidance and the use of personal training records is recommended On completion of the course the probationary Control Operator must be able to demonstrate possession of the following core skills A basic knowledge of the correct use of items of equipment in use within the Control Centre including call handling mobilising message and radio facilities of the information required from emergency callers of mobilising requirements for types of inci dents of the Fire Services Acts 1947 and 1959 Sections 1 2 12 30 and 31 and of completing incident statistics A working knowledge of all callsigns and locations of mobile resources within the Brigade of the methods of alerting resources and mobilising t
224. sh between Communications Mobilising and IT systems The Control Centre as the name implies is by its very nature an essential part of any Fire and Rescue Service Instead of the free for all of the early days firefighters can rely on being well informed about the incident they are attending being kept up to date with all developments as they occur and have the knowledge that requests for help or assistance will be quickly and efficiently acted upon The skill of the operational firefighter together with the professionalism of their colleagues in the Control Centre combine to provide an efficient and effective service to the public Communications and Mobilising 21 Communications and Mobilising Chapter Chapter 4 The 999 112 emergency service 4 1 BT The Public Telecommunications Operators PTOs are obliged under the terms of their licences to provide a public emergency call service by means of which any member of the public may without charge communicate as quickly as practicable with any of the appropriate local emergency authorities EAs to notify them of an emergency The 999 call service provides national coverage in respect of the four main emergency services L e police ambulance fire and coastguards Other ser vices can also receive emergency calls via the police These organisations are cave rescue col liery rescue mountain rescue air sea rescue diver emergency and cardiac units BT takes
225. smitters direct into their command and control computer Two simple key operations will display the PDA to the premises on the opera tor s screen Warwickshire Fire and Rescue Service also monitor FAS within Warwickshire and some outside the county via a digital com municator Several small areas of the country Cambridgeshire Norfolk Suffolk and Fife are covered by the Alarms By Carrier ABC system This uses the subscriber s normal exchange line onto which is superimposed an inaudible signal so that the line is continuously monitored by British Telecom Fire signals are routed directly to and monitored at the brigade Control Centre where the ABC system interfaces with the mobilising sys tem this enables the alarm signals to be displayed directly onto the mobilising screens Other than in a small number of areas examples of which are contained in the first paragraph above and in the four counties served by ABC there are generally no facilities for transmission of fire sig nals from FAS direct to fire brigade Control Centres except by 999 autodiallers the use of which is now discouraged Signals are normally routed to an alarm company Central Alarm Station A British Standard Code of Practice BS 5979 Code of Practice for Remote Centres for Alarm Systems gives recommendations for the planning construction facilities and operation of Central Alarm Stations that monitor fire alarm intruder alarm and or social alar
226. ss points and service and customer facilities Tunnels under construction will give rise to different problems The following applies to any building which is constructed completely or partially below ground and includes any tunnel constructed as a railway a roadway or for any other purpose that might attract a fire brigade attendance It could include for example service access to large shopping indus trial hospital office and housing complexes For practical purposes there is no penetration of the surface by any of the radio frequencies used by the fire service for normal above ground commu nications Technical Bulletin 1 1993 provides guidance on Operational Incidents in Tunnels and underground structures and includes as Part 3 Guidance on Communications in these risks In September 1997 the Home Office completed successful trials of a low cost technique for improving fire service at incident UHF radio communications Trial reports were issued in DCOL 1 1998 Item C in Scotland as DFM 2 1998 Item C The trial comprised a number of self contained and handheld radio UHF base stations operating Previous page is blank on one of the UHF two frequency simplex inci dent channels on permanent talk though and used in conjunction with fire service standard handheld radios Any number of such base stations can be linked together by means of a simple audio cable to provide seamless communications In effect any handheld ra
227. ssage in a data format causing the operation of an Evacuation Signal either to all in the risk area or selectively It also facilitates the signalling of a radio message in a data format indicating that the operator is withdrawing from the risk area for reasons of per sonal safety This last information particularly if more than one team signals this will assist the Radio Distress Signalling Unit Functions as an Automatic Distress Signal Unit Intrinsically safe Transmits Distress Alarm message Transmits Withdraw message Receives Evacuation message Receives Selective Evacuation message Transmits Data from external source Communications and Mobilising 109 Entry Control Unit i Figure 13 3 Telemetry in use during trials Photo Essex Fireand Rescue Service Incident Commander in deciding whether emer gency evacuation of the risk area is justified The Home Office has developed a User Requirement JCDD 40 for fire service telemetry 110 Fire Service Manual Figure 13 2 Entry Control Unit Graphic Marconi Can communicate with up to 50 RDSUs Receives Distress Alarm message Receives Withdraw message Transmits Evacuation message Transmits Selective Evacuation message Shows status of RDSUs Stores event log Receives Data from RDSU based on the use of a dedicated radio frequency in Home Office regulated radio frequency bands supported by a Type Approval MG41 specifica tion and a common air in
228. ssibly by calming and reassuring the caller It may be necessary to give advice for dealing with the emergency whilst waiting for fire service attendance Techniques used to achieve this could include a sympathetic approach or perhaps the adoption of an authoritative tone The exact style being depen dent upon the Operator s perception of what is appropriate in the circumstances 12 Fire Service Manual Figure 2 1 Fire Control Centre Photo Counts Durham and Darlington Fire ami Rescue Service It is possible that the caller may be in some per sonal danger It is easy to understand that such cir cumstances might create a wide range of behav ioural responses on the part of the caller Traditionally Fire Control Operators are taught the appropriate inter personal skills by a combina tion of initial training including simulation exer cises and on the job training by experienced per sonnel The first contact an emergency caller has with the Fire Service is with the Fire Control Operator The way the operator handles the call is vital and to this end the operator must be immediately avail able to take control of the call This will enable effective collation of call details to mobilise and will indicate to the caller that they are being dealt with efficiently Further information on the training of Control Centre personnel is given in the Training Section Appendix I The responsibilities of each rank within C
229. sually used in the larger metropolitan brigades and gen erally performs the same role as FCO GFCO in managing the Control Centre Other brigades may introduce the rank to lead special projects or be head of section for the Centre Le Command Control Communications and IT or perhaps perform the management function of a DO with responsibilities for Personnel amp Development Equal Opportunities or Health amp However in some Brigades the PFCO may be responsible for developing brigade mobilising pol icy as part of the Principal Management Team 2 2 Control Centre Staffing Levels Her Majesty s Fire Service Inspectorate and the Scottish Office Fire Service Inspectorate is charged with the duty of obtaining information on how fire authorities are performing their functions with particular regard to efficiency and effective ness Included in these functions are the brigade Control Centre and the manner in which it is staffed and operates To assist HM Inspectors and brigades in setting staffing levels within the Control Centre a Staffing Model has been developed This model was issued to brigades as DCOL 6 1996 in Scotland as DFM 6 1996 The model is designed to give an indicator of the number of operators required to handle and process a given workload to a given Grade of Service The model is not intended to take into account levels of supervision sickness training or control personnel required for projects etc It is use
230. t in the past fairly widespread use of the public telephone network was made by Fire Services for remotely controlling fire station alert ing systems this practice was generally speaking only acceptable when mobilising was decentral ized on fairly small units such as districts or divi sions Nowadays due to the automation of the telephone network and the rapid expansion in the amount of telephone traffic it is no longer regard ed as satisfactory for emergency call out purposes Therefore the primary bearer could be kilostream ISDN radio or a commercially available public data system such as RAM or Paknet Whilst the secondary bearer should be independent of the pri mary bearer it could be ISDN radio data radio or PSTN Some Fire Services also have a tertiary bearer and utilize a commercial paging network to operate the firefighters callout system Other Brigades use an overlay paging scheme on the Brigade main scheme radio as their tertiary bearer So far as the initial connection of 999 112 emer gency callers is concerned it is important that ade quate facilities are provided to enable telephone operators to do this very quickly The introduction of digital exchanges 999 112 services are provided over PSTN lines between Operator Centres and the emergency authorities these lines being safe guarded by allowing sole access by the Operator Centres As a standby against breakdown of these circuits and for use during peak per
231. t sufficiently large offsets to prevent noticeable interaction 10 2 5 The Quasi Synchronous or Common Frequency System Fortunately technical advances have improved the stability of the frequency generators used for scheme main transmitters to the stage where they can maintain an almost constant frequency over long periods of time in spite of changing tempera tures etc The main transmitters at different sites are not exactly synchronous but they are almost or Quasi synchronous For all practical purposes they all have the same common frequency As an example fire brigade scheme main trans mitters currently operate at about 70 Mhz The sta bility of the quasi synchronous frequency gener ators is such that the individual main transmitters in a scheme keep to within less than 0 5 cycle per second of each other In conjunction with the method of modulation used a scheme can be described as quasi syn chronous amplitude modulation or quasi syn chronous frequency modulation with the alterna tive term common frequency in place of quasi synchronous Doppler Effect An effect which may be apparent in quasi syn chronous common frequency systems which was never apparent in spaced carrier systems is the Doppler effect This is the effect where there is an apparent change of frequency whenever there is relative motion between a transmitter and receiver If the vehicle is moving towards a fix
232. tective carrying cases The design chosen must take account of local requirements Even if the equipment pro cured is water resistant the protective case should be designed so that it minimises the chances of the battery terminals connections aerials or controls coming into contact with water or spray This is particularly important where the design of the radio equipment is such that water can collect near any of these fittings Trunked i Caller L Idle Channel Q Busy Channel Communications and Mobilising 97 Virtually any electrical or electronic equipment will fail if subjected continually to heat in excess of that in which it was designed to operate Battery compartments of radio equipment should be kept closed and locked in the case of intrinsi cally safe equipment except when batteries are being changed Batteries of explosion protected equipment must never be changed within the haz ard area Radio equipment should be carried in such a way that it cannot easily be dropped strike another solid object become exposed to water water spray corrosive chemicals or be subject to any unnecessary or abnormal mechanical stress Radios should not be carried in containers with other metallic objects which could make accidental connection with battery charging or other external radio connections When external equipment not connected to any socket a protective cover should always be in place over the exposed connectors
233. ted into some existing radio systems The first systems operated at 100 baud and were literally one way only with the acknowl edgement being a single tone Further develop ment enabled these systems to operate at 300 baud with two way communications All systems operated over the speech radio net work One of the major problems associated with this shared voice data radio channel was that data tones would block speech traffic using the radio channel This had the effect of data being received but speech having to be re transmitted Mobile Data Depending upon the level of traffic it is some times better to provided a radio channel specifical ly for mobile data This allows a number of differ ent types of messages to be passed The first sys tems went live in 1989 providing a series of ser vices to the incident For example Mobilising messages C amp C to mobile Administrative messages C amp C to Mobile RAS messages both directions Access to Management Information Systems Access to Chemdata central information Incident messages mobile to C amp C This was the first time it was possible for mobile information to be directly input into C amp C systems RAS had been possible earlier without any Fire 104 Fire Service Manual Mobile Printer and Keyboard Figure 12 2 Typical data transmission arrangement ral es Modem Control personnel action and requiring the Control Room staff to change working pro
234. ted to users in the form of Radio Frequency Policy Statements Separate series of policy statements are prepared for both the Police and for the Fire Service These documents which are classified as Confidential under the Government Protective Marking Scheme are sent to all Chief Officers of Police and Fire Services and to certain other interested parties such as the Radiocommuni cations Agency The documents form the basis on which assignments are licensed and regulated Radio Frequency Policy Statements can include operational limitations on the use of channels where it is considered necessary to maintain the efficient use of the radio spectrum Type Approval To provide the most efficient use of the available radio spectrum and avoid undue levels of interfer ence between systems it is essential that all radio equipment meets minimum standards of perfor mance Type approval is a procedure which involves checking the technical characteristics of new equipment or modifications to existing equipment to ensure that the design meets these standards and is acceptable for licensing Type approval is only intended to provide a means of examining an equipment s potential for causing or suffering radio interference It 1s not an endorse ment or recommendation of a particular device for operational use If transmissions other than those of the required frequency Spurious transmissions are radiated by transmitters then
235. tem infrastructure developed for use by UK Fire Services Such a system is able to make use of the Fire Station mobil ising system that already forms part of the Command and Control facility at any Fire Service Communications Control Centre The mobilising system is connected to a Data System Controller whose purpose is to control the opera tion of the radio data system via the Terminal Server One function of The Data System Controller is to transparently convert data into a form suitable for transmission to the hill top site Radio Modems The Terminal Server distributes data to and collects data from the Radio Modems Best hill top site informa tion is stored and continually updated for all mobiles and the appropriate site used for any communication with a mobile It is possible to send general text messages between Control and mobiles as well as status messages from mobiles to Control incorporate both voice and data modes of opera tion These networks consist of individual radio base stations that communicate with the users each base station forming a cell In the data mode the system offers a circuit switched end to end communications service and at present transmis sion speeds of up to 9 6K bits per second Packet Radio Service There are several commer cial packet radio data networks These networks deliver data in the form of bursts or packets Each packet contains address information information data and some form of error
236. tems 5 1 Control Centre Design A comprehensive guidance document for Fire Service Control Centres has been published by the Home Office in DCOL 8 1997 in Scotland as DFM 8 1997 FRDG Publication 2 97 The docu ment includes advice on the Control Centre design amp ergonomics procurement and legislation The most common workstation configuration for a Control Centre Operator comprises two PC termi nals one connected to the mobilising system and the other to the communications switch Through these two terminals the operator can carry out all mobilising and communications tasks In some cases a third PC will be used to hold resource dis play maps and geographical information systems GIS Typically each operator position in a Control Centre will be fitted with the same workstation configuration and system facilities through which the basic tasks of message handling log ging and resource despatching are carried Occasionally a specially configured supervisory position may be installed to provide additional facilities such as special monitoring functions or access control etc 44 Fire Service Manual 5 2 Communications 5 2 1 Administrative Communications In centralised mobilising schemes there are con siderable advantages in segregating administrative communications systems from operational sys tems though it is common for links to be provided between them to give flexibility of usage The main advantages of this pri
237. tems will at least maintain and ideally improve their present standards of efficiency and reliability The Home Office is greatly indebted to all those who have contributed and assisted by providing material and information in the preparation of the edition This book replaces the Manual of Firemanship Book 10 Fire Brigade Communications and Mobilising Home Office June 1998 IV Fire Service Manual Communications and Mobilising Contents Preface Chapter 1 Regulatory issues 1 1 H M Government 1 2 OFTEL 1 3 Radio Frequency Management 1 4 Home Office Communications Advisory Panel HOCAP Chapter 2 Fire Control Centres 2 1 Basic Call Handling Procedures 2 2 Control Centre Staffing Levels Chapter 3 A brief history of the Fire Control Centre Chapter 4 The 999 112 emergency service 4 1 BT 4 1 1 4 1 2 4 1 3 4 1 4 4 1 5 4 1 6 4 1 7 4 1 8 4 1 9 4 1 10 4 1 11 4 1 12 The British Telecom fixed telephone system Operator call handling procedures Mismatches between EA and Fixed Network Operator Boundaries Provision of ex directory information Access to tape recordings of Emergency Calls Calling Line Identity CLD Network Resilience Priority Fault Repair Service BT National Emergency Linkline Government Telephone Preference Scheme Secondary Control Publicity Public Education 4 2 Cable amp Wireless 999 service 4 2 1 Operator call handling procedure 4 2 2 Enquiries and requests from emergen
238. terface Figure 13 4 Telemetry in use by Breathing Apparatus Entry Control Officer This User Requirement specifies the minimum functionality for such equipment which includes remote signalling of Distress remote signalling of Evacuation Selective Evacuation and signalling that the operator is withdrawing for reasons of per sonal safety It allows the equipment to be com bined with and provide the functionality of an Automatic Distress Signal Unit It also allows connection by means of a standard interface and transmission of data to and from operator worn equipment providing enhanced functionality such as cylinder contents temperature and so on A sim ilar connexion is specified for the remote element of the system to allow the use of equipment for managing the incoming data Communications and Mobilising 111 Communications and Mobilising Chapter Chapter 14 Sub surface communications Although there are exceptions underground tun nels and similar structures are normally designed for use for transportation mineral excavation car parking and storage purposes Apart from under ground car parks the structures are often quite old and as a result neither designed or built to ideal standards The characteristics of each tunnel or structure will vary greatly a tunnel may be nothing more than a short horizontal tube cutting through a hill or it may be a vast underground complex with many tunnels acce
239. termine a vehi cle s position to better than 100m and frequently better than 50m There are however locations e g built up urban areas where the accuracy of the posi tional calculations are compromised by physical or geographical phenomena e g high rise buildings obscuring the satellites from the GPS receiver 64 Fire Service Manual Both systems require a data network to deliver the positional data to the communications centre The Datatrak system utilises a national radio network set up specifically for AVL reporting GPS based systems require a mobile data network to be pro vided This requirement can be met either by using a public data network or a PMR channel with a data capability The final component of the AVL system involves the processing and presentation of the AVL data to support the control room and management task of a fire brigade While the computation and delivery of a vehicle s position can be achieved through the use of commercially available components the application of this data to benefit a fire brigade requires a degree of customisation Figure 7 3 Securicor Datatrak Ltd data terminal Figure 7 4 GPS Antenna mounted in centre of appliance roof Photo Fortek Figure 7 5 Data terminal installed in cab Figure 7 6 Mobile Data equipment in appliance under rear seat Photo Fortek uso00G Sok COOCCOOEESSE O92 0005 O b o f Communications and Mobilisin
240. th their safety and operational effectiveness This information could include for example informa tion on remaining cylinder contents and respiration rates ambient and body core temperature heart rates etc This data can be displayed to the wearer in full or more practicably in an abbreviated form perhaps by means of a display in the firefighter s breathing apparatus facemask They can also be recorded in an electronic data base and downloaded at the con clusion of the incident to provide a record which can be added to personnel records and used in the investigation of any injury or malfunction of the apparatus It is also possible to transmit some of this data by radio to those controlling the incident including the Incident Commander or the breathing appara Figure 13 1 Radio Distress Signalling Unit Graphic Marconi Chapter Breathing Apparatus tus Entry Control Officer where the data can be used to provide information which can be used to facilitate better control of the incident and to improve firefighter safety The provision of a radio data link between fire fighters and those controlling the incident will also permit the remote signalling of other safety sig nals including the transmission of information to the breathing apparatus Entry Control Officer of a message in a data format indicating the automatic or manual operation of a breathing apparatus Distress Signal Unit and the transmission of a me
241. that LPS 1020 approved Central Alarm Stations must prepare a written report describing the circumstances and action taken in all cases where the time between receipt of a sig nal and transmission of information to the fire brigade exceeds 3 minutes This includes any delay in answering the incoming call at the fire brigade Control Centre There are four distinct means for transmitting fire signals from protected premises to RMCs These are 1 Digital Communicators which automatically dial the Central Alarm Station using PSTN and transmit a coded signal to a receiver at the Central Alarm Station 2 Private circuits which provide a permanent monitored transmission path between the pro tected premises and the Central Alarm Station 3 British Telecom CARE system which is similar in principle to ABC in that it uses the subscriber s normal telephone line to carry alarm signals piggy back but is used to route signals to a Central Alarm Station rather than the fire brigade 4 Paknet Radio Access links a protected promises to a Central Alarm Station using Vodafone s public data network Connecting an alarm panel to a Paknet Radio Pad pro vides access to the network enabling alarm signals to be sent to the Central Alarm Station Prior to the widespread introduction of the digital telephone network research showed that digital communicators which are probably the simplest and least expensive form of transmiss
242. the call to the appropriate fire brigade this is clearly only possible if the Central Alarm Station and the protected premises are located within the same fire brigade area A single ex directory telephone number served by two or more lines on a hunting group at the fire brigade Control Centre is regarded as two inde pendent means of communication On receipt of a fire alarm signal at the Central Alarm Station action should be taken by an oper ator at the Central Alarm Station to establish com munications with the appropriate fire brigade Control Centre within a 30 seconds for 80 of fire alarm signals received and b 60 seconds for 98 5 of fire alarm signals received These times exclude delays in transmission of the signal from the protected premises to the Central Alarm Station and any delays in answering calls at the fire brigade Control Centre they represent a form of Central Alarm Station response time The Loss Prevention Certification Board LPCB operate an approvals scheme for Central Alarm Stations that monitor fire alarm systems The Central Alarm Stations are approved to the LPCB Loss Prevention Standard LPS 1020 Requirements for Remote Centres for Fire Alarm Systems It is a requirement of LPS 1020 that the Central Alarm Station must be able to offer an LPCB approved system for the transmission of fire alarm signals from the protected premises to the Central Alarm Station although the approved Central
243. the less effective aerial this type of equipment is not as good as a vehicle radio particularly for transmitting back to control 10 2 13 Power Supply Arrangements The control and main scheme radio equipment at the control station and all the radio equipment at hill top sites are operated from the normal domestic electric ity supply of 230 volts 50 Hz AC Fire Service per sonnel should be aware of the potential danger aris ing from the presence of such voltages and should never attempt to go inside any equipment At all key stations there will usually be a stand by power supply in the form of a diesel driven gener ator with automatic start up and change over to ensure the scheme is never put out of action by a mains supply failure Fixed mobile equipment may be designed to operate direct from the AC mains 1 e genuinely fixed equipment made to operate on mobile fre quencies or it may be a mobile radio made to operate from a vehicle battery 12 volts DC with a mains power unit made to operate from a vehi cle battery 12 volts DC with a mains power unit which converts 240 volts AC direct to 12 volts DC without the need for a battery 10 2 14 Microwave In the section on scheme engineering it was explained how as many as eight separate frequen cy channels are required in a three station scheme to support just one operational channel for a brigade Additional stations require at least
244. the overall system on a staged basis There are basically two component parts to the system an encoder and a transmitter The encoder generates the call required and the transmitter sends it to the alerters It was common practice with the previous alerter bays to use two transmit ters in a main and standby configuration This has all but disappeared with the new MG 4 alerter sys tems on the grounds that modern transmitters are far more reliable but the facility is still available giving Brigades the opportunity to take financial advantage of the improved technology and still use dual bay at certain locations if operational needs dictate Standby power is required to cover for the eventu ality of mains supply failure and normally this would take the form of batteries designed to give the Brigades stated period of operation However various options are available and a choice depends on the period of backup and whether or not other devices share the backup source for example the GD92 Comms unit The charging of such batteries would be by stand alone equipment or perhaps via one of the units already part of the system This is dependant in part on individual suppliers and their particular approach Although there is flexibility in the type of power supply that can be provided and Brigades may request backup periods less than the MG4 recommendation suppliers must be in a position to achieve the 24 hours if requested 11 2 Encoder
245. the processing of incidents 5 4 Ancillary Control Facilities 5 4 1 Voice Recorders Fire Services record incoming emergency calls automatically by using various types of voice recording machines ranging from the relatively simple single and multi track tape machines to PC based digital recorders with automatic time injec tion It is customary to devote an individual track on a multi track machine to each workstation and derive the audio from the connections to the oper ator s headset enabling all land lines and radio channels in use at that particular work station to be recorded Communications and Mobilising 51 Although voice recordings are not used to assist turnout they are nevertheless sometimes useful for verifying the accuracy of an address or other information They are also used at subsequent enquiries to prove what in fact was said on a par ticular occasion both by the caller and the Fire Service operator Recordings of emergency calls are frequently used as training aids to help trainees appreciate the problems in extracting ade quate information from agitated callers They are also used to aid identification of callers who have made malicious fire calls and there have been instances where when faced with a voice record ing the culprit has confessed to being the origina tor of a false alarm 5 4 2 Availability and Fire Situation Display Every Control Centre must have in one form or another an accurate and up to
246. this is likely to cause interference to other radio receivers For civil radio spectrum users these performance standards are published in a series of specifications issued by the RA Similarly equipment used in Home Office bands must also meet certain stan dards to satisfy the conditions of the users licence The Home Office sets its own standards of perfor mance for equipment used in its bands Currently these are based where possible upon the appro priate MPT or European Telecommunications Standard Institute ETSI specification Where there are no relevant specifications Radio Frequency and Communications Planning Unit RFCPU publishes its own These set out the car dinal points to which equipment must comply before it 1s considered for licensing The relevant Home Office Radio Frequency Policy Statement should be consulted for advice on the type approval of equipment to be used in Home Office bands Only approved equipment is licensed under cur rent regulations and users are advised to check the suitability of any apparatus before making a finan cial commitment Use of non approved equipment contravenes the conditions of the comprehensive radio licence held by each Police force Fire Brigade or other user of channels in the Home Office bands Separate additional approval is MPI is an abbreviation for Ministry of Post and Telecommunications Although this Ministry no longer exists the RA is still using the initi
247. tion Hand Portable E LS Station D f b Fixed Mobile station 4_ Main outgoing frequency Main station C I Main incoming frequency rt i es ee a Radio link frequency Note LT LALS can all be the same Figure 10 8 Multi station double frequency area coverage scheme 84 Fire Service Manual wide area coverage radio schemes In the example shown Figure 10 8 a permanent assignment of eight frequencies is required with independent out going links to all stations and this can only be reduced to six if they all share a common outgoing link that is two main frequencies and either six or four link frequencies to provide just one opera tional radio channel 10 2 9 Equipment It is normal practice in Fire Service radio schemes to provide two sets of equipment at every station known as the main and the stand by equipment Basically only one is operational at any one time and their purpose is to ensure continuity of service in the event of failure Change over from Main to Stand by equipment and vice versa is normally under the control of the control station operator or supervisor In addition every station will have several items of ancillary equipment At the main control station of a radio scheme facilities are provided to enable control room staff to isolate the main stations individually when for one reason or another they are troublesome e g when a temporary very high noise l
248. tivi ties during the absence of the Watch Officer Communications and Mobilising 13 Assist and support the Watch Officer in respect of the day to day management and development of personnel Ensure that all resources have been dis patched correctly Prepare and carry out watch training pro gramme and maintain training records as required by the Fire Control Officer Undertake administrative project work as required and assist in the supervision and completion of Control Watch administrative workloads Fire Control Officer In addition to the above Monitor emergency calls and take command of the dispatch of all resources Ensure that fire cover is maintained through out Brigade area utilising resources from neighbouring Fire Brigades if necessary Ensure compliance with all Instructions policies and guidelines Brigade Identify training needs and manage the design programming running and monitor ing of training Management of Control Watch administra tion duties including financial responsibilities as required Assist and support other officers and be responsible to the Group Fire Control Officer if applicable in respect of the day to day management and development of per sonnel This may include conditions of service sick ness monitoring and welfare issues Assist and support management in the devel opment and planning of mobilising strategy 14 Fire Se
249. to maps of the Brigade area ranging from 1 50 Q00 raster based maps to vector based maps which enable the operator to zoom in to dis play individual buildings These maps can then be linked to building plans street maps are also available to replace the map books carried on vehicles Hydrant and water main information may also be superimposed on the maps so that the information resources of the Brigade are available to all mobile terminals Clearly mapping data files are quite large Therefore storing the maps centrally and transmitting the data on demand would require high transmission rates cause con gestion on the radio network and be expen sive Currently it would be better to store this type of information on the mobile data termi nal hard drive if available Automatic Vehicle Locating Systems AVLS AVL systems have been available commer cially for some years It has only been more recently that the Fire Service has investigated the technology for its own use see DCOL 8 1997 in Scotland DFM 8 1997 There are two basic systems in use land based and satellite The vehicle is fitted with a suitable AVLS receiver which following the reception of signals allows the geograph ic position to be computed and then transmit ted to a central mobilising system The posi tion of the vehicle is then displayed on a map at the central control These systems have varying degrees of accu racy but care must be taken
250. tortion The transmitter receiver and associated equipment at a fixed location Chief and Assistant Chief Fire Officer s Association An identifier normally comprising a name numbers or letters by which an appliance or officer is identified when being called by radio Closed Circuit Television A technique used in mobile radio telephony to use the same radio spec trum many times in one network Low power radio transmitters are used to cover a limited area or cell so that frequencies in use can be re used in other parts of the network Previous page Communications and Mobilising 121 is blank CHEMET CIMAH CLI Concentrator COSHH CTCSS Cycle DCOL DDI DIEL Digital Digital data network DTI Duplex working EAs EACC ERP ESM ETD ETSI Fire alarm call point 122 Fire Service Manual Chemical Meteorology Chemical Incident Major Accident Hazard Calling Line Identity Any communications device that allows a shared transmission medium to accommodate more data sources than there are channels currently avail able within the transmission medium Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Continuous Tone Controlled Signalling System In PMR a method of using sub audio tones to effect selective transmissions to a mobile or group of mobiles The portion of the radio wave between successive crests or troughs which is repeated over and over again to form the continuous wave Dear Chief Offi
251. ty of the power supply to the site also needs to be assessed Further advice can be found in the relevant Policy Statement on site sharing Retained Firefighter Alerter Systems Fire Alerter systems used by Fire Brigades operate on a 25kHz bandwidth FM alerter channel in the VHF highband portion of spectrum The Home Office RFCPU allocate the alerter tones to brigades The country has been divided into hexagonal cells 50 km across with each cell being divided further into 127 smaller cells with each smaller cell being 5 km across Seven codes are allocated to each smaller cell making a total of 889 codes Fire stations are allocated codes on the basis that the minimum reuse distance is 50kms All equipment must be type approved by RFCPU Licences allowing Fire Brigades to operate the above type of alerting system will be withdrawn after 31 st December 1998 Thereafter systems will comply with MG 4 MG4 Specification Systems In 1991 a new alerter system specification was introduced produced to Home Office Specifica tion MG 4 Issue 2 which employs a recognised industry standard signalling system know as POC SAG Post Office Code Standardisation Advisory Group The transmitters operate at a maximum output of 25 Watts Effective Radiated Power ERP The system architecture is structured to provide each brigade with a unique coded address together with up to 2000 separate address codes which may be allocated within the brigade t
252. uble frequency personal set usage with control set lt on talk through a Personal Set control point equipment is well sited and has an efficient aerial this arrangement has the advantage that working range between the control point and individual personal set users is greatly improved However with single frequency working effec tive range between individuals depends upon them being within direct range of each other this arrangement will not improve person to person communication The control set operator could however personally relay messages from one per sonal set user to another where they are not within direct working range It should be noted that when a user is transmitting they will not be able to hear calls from other users Two Frequency UHF Personal Set Channels UHF multi channel personal equipment with three or more channels has been adopted by most fire brigades for fireground purposes Four of the six channels utilise single frequency working and two utilise a two frequency channel The two frequen cy channels cannot be used for direct person to person communications without a suitable control set Figure 10 14 illustrates the arrangement which is adopted when using two frequency personal set channels All outgoing transmissions from the control set are on one frequency f a and all incoming transmission from personal set users are on another frequency f b Therefore since all
253. ugh the battery supplying the radio will be discharged more than the other one and this can cause battery maintenance problems The main disadvantage of this method is the risk of a vehicle mechanic unfamiliar with the unusual arrangement re connecting the radio across the full 24 volts when replacing the batteries This method is of course not possible if the 24 volt battery is a single unit with no access to the intermediate 12 volt point 2 By using 24 volt to 12 volt converters These units which are readily available are easily fitted to 24 volt vehicles and are far more sat isfactory However there are cost installation and maintenance overheads to consider 10 3 8 Fixed Mobile Version A fixed mobile version of the standard mobile radio is available designed to be fitted in a rack or cabinet in a building and powered from the normal 230 volt domestic AC mains supply via a power unit whose output is 12 volts DC The radio can be controlled either locally at the rack or cabinet or remotely by a control unit designed to fit in a console or be free standing on a desktop Emergency power can be made avail able either via the building backup generator from the uninterrupted power supply or a direct 12v DC switchcable or plugged battery supply 10 3 9 Special Features 1 Single frequency working The standard mobile radio normally works in the two frequency simplex mode communicating with Control over
254. umber and address of the call BT s recording of emergency calls is from the time that the call is answered by the BT operator to the time when the call to the EA is cleared by the caller and the EA the speech of all parties is recorded All 999 112 call records are held for three months Mismatches between EA and Fixed Network Operator Boundaries 4 1 3 BT has over 7500 exchanges each with its own code it is these codes that determine how the call is routed BT exchanges have grown up over the last 90 years as the cable network has evolved and each has a defined catchment area averaging 4km in radius 26 Fire Service Manual Exchange area boundaries do not always coincide with EA boundaries Where mismatches exist careful planning and general agreement between neighbouring Chief Fire Officers Fire Masters and the BT Emergency Services manager has to be reached on which EA Control Centre will take the calls from the whole of the split exchange area in question The Fixed Network Operators will connect all directly connected customers to the appropriate EACC for the agreed geographical areas wherever possible It will be the EA s responsibility to pass information if necessary to another EACC in these mismatches cases 4 1 4 Provision of ex directory information BT operators will only provide name and address information for numbers from which a recent 999 112 call has been made All other routine requests for such inform
255. ve bands given in Figure 10 3 However for our pur poses microwaves means frequencies above 1000 Mhz 1 Ghz that is wavelengths shorter than 0 3 metre 30 cms Microwave ovens operate at 2 45 Communications and Mobilising 8 Ghz so the frequencies which will be used for emer gency services links in the range 1 8 to 2 3 Ghz can be legitimately described as microwaves although Figure 10 3 clearly shows such frequen cies to be in the upper part of the UHF band As far as the operational user of a radio scheme is concerned its linking arrangements its scheme engineering should be completely transparent in other words operationally invisible The user may work on the assumption that radio signals pass directly between the vehicle aerial and the mast at brigade HQ although it is better to appre ciate the limitations of radio communication over the ground and the need for linked multi station schemes Limitations At microwave frequencies an unobstructed line of sight path between aerials at opposite ends of a link is essential This is in contrast to VHF links for which a degree of obstruction from hills trees or buildings was acceptable As a result it is not always possible to replace a VHF link path with an identical microwave link path Some reconfigura tion either re routing between existing stations or additional stations may be necessary In VHF linked schemes every effort was made to lin
256. vices for people with severe speech and hearing difficulties To that end the Text Users Emergency Service was launched in March 1995 Run by Typetalk which is part of the RNID and funded by BT it gives deaf deaf and blind deaf ened hard of hearing and speech impaired people access to the Emergency Services A deaf or speech impaired person who is unable to use an Figure 43 Emergency text telephone for the deaf Photo Typetalk Figure 4 4 Using a text phone Photo BT D so ordinary telephone uses a textphone which is like an ordinary phone but has a keyboard and screen to dial the Typetalk Text Users Emergency Service on 0800 112 999 The operators employed by Typetalk are highly trained and fully familiar with the needs of deaf and other text phone users Typetalk procedure for dealing with incoming Emergency calls 1 Receive call on Text Users Emergency Service TUES terminal Emergency calls take priori ty over all other switchroom activity 2 Establish the number from which the call is being made 3 Establish the service required by the caller 4 Attempt to obtain name address and location of incident if different from caller s address Communications and Mobilising 33 5 On obtaining minimum information calling line number and service required dial out to the required Emergency Authority using BT 999 service and instruct BT to connect Typetalk to the EA for the
257. voice radio or cel lular telephone scheme This facility should also incorporate the ability to send other stan dard messages for example assistance and stop messages and should have a free text option to cater for any non standard messages Risk Information Information gained from the inspection of premises under the relevant section of the Fire Service Act shows the layout of the premises the utility supply inlets and isolat ing points the location of water supplies and any risks to fire fighting This data which has traditionally been held in paper form lends itself to being held electronically thus mak ing it available to all mobile data terminals and centrally on the brigade s own network Building plans and maps may also to be linked to this risk information Brigade Information Brigade orders fire fighting information operational and technical procedures any information produced by Brigades or from other sources may be held in an easily retriev able format so that the Officer in Charge of an operational incident has all the informa tion available Hazardous Information Information relating to hazardous substances may either be held on the mobile or centrally Chemdata for example when held centrally can be distributed by radio and only compris es of a relatively small amount of data Graphical Information Systems GIS GIS software which requires mapping data gives the operational crews access
258. wed that the required func tionality can be met if AVL positional updates are transmitted with each resource status update upon a request from the mobilising system or control centre operator and periodically at a rate depen dant upon the resource status If a public data network is to be used then the inter val for periodic updates could be several minutes without seriously compromising the system integrity However if updates can be delivered at no cost other than network loading then the inter val set should be such that it does not impact upon the other data traffic Most mobile data terminals and portable PCs can now be fitted with a GPS transceiver and most transceivers will compute the vehicle position to the level of accuracy required for fire brigade appli cations Certain units will perform better than oth ers in difficult areas such as urban areas where satellites may be hidden from view by high build ings Therefore the performance of the proposed GPS transceiver should be checked in various key locations throughout the brigade area The same approach is recommended if a terrestrial solution is being considered 7 4 Operational Considerations Present mobilising procedures and PDA s reflect the principle that if available an appliance will be despatched to an incident in its own station ground In the Pilot site where this policy applies there were numerous occasions where other appliances sometimes at
259. when attempting to predict the precise location and direction of movement of a vehicle using this system It is possible for example that the AVL system could indicate that a vehicle is located close to the scene but it transpires that it is on the wrong side of a river or motorway to attend the incident See AVLS Chapter 7 Vehicle Telemetry With the provision of a processor on a vehi cle and a wireless connection with a central Communications and Mobilising 107 point it is possible to send telemetry informa tion For example information on the vehicle engine systems could be routed to the Brigade s transport department or show quan tities of water foam or other operational con sumables to the Control Centre or mobile control unit 12 7 Mobile Control Units With the development of reliable data transmission technology and vehicle based computer systems mobile control vehicles used for major incident command and control are now being equipped with IT systems linked to brigade computer net works and mobilising systems These vehicles include complex computer systems and voice data message handling facilities Bespoke software packages have been developed specifically for this purpose 108 Fire Service Manual Communications and Mobilising Chapter 13 Telemetry There is an increasing need to provide firefighters particularly those protected with breathing appara tus with enhanced information to improve bo
260. works It should be noted that it is not possible to make 999 112 calls from these payphones The phones are clearly marked to inform the public that 999 112 calls are barred 4 7 Cellular communications Cellular radio is a telecommunications service which allows people with mobile phones to make and receive radio telephone calls within the ser vice area to and from almost all national interna tional and other mobile phone network numbers In the early 1980 s Government and Industry con cluded that British business would be handicapped without adequate mobile communications To this end cellular licences have been granted by the Department of Trade and Industry DTI since June 1985 The cellular licence issued by the DTI and moni tored by OFTEL prohibits some network operators from dealing directly with customers This has cre ated a complex multi tiered market structure com prising of Service Providers Dealers and High Street Retailers This complex structure has implications when trying to trace an abandoned call on a cellular network The original cellular phones were analogue but by 1997 there were twice as many digital phones as analogue many of them utilising Global Systems for Mobile Communications GSM The history of GSM started in 1978 at the World Administrative Radio Conference WARC where the radio frequency band for cellular mobile sys tems was agreed upon In 1982 a committee was set up to e
261. works calls originating from an analogue exchange will not show the full telephone number though a partial display of the exchange code may sometimes be obtained The customer may there fore still need to be asked for their number in order to route the call correctly The originating calling information CLI will be used to automatically display details of the appro priate EACC connect to numbers It is worth noting that an increasing number of business customers have DDI systems and or pri Emergency Authority lt Current Emergency Call Handling BT Computer Centres Bt vate networks In these cases the number automat ically presented to the PTO operator is usually the outgoing number of the main switchboard This will be the number passed to the EA and may be different to the number the caller may give if asked by either the PTO or EA operator There are also some private networks that extend over several areas Their 999 1 12 calls could be fed into the PTO networks in only one of these areas This will lead to inevitable problems as they will be presented with a telephone number applic able to this area and therefore routed according ly These will only become apparent at the EACC when the caller is questioned as to their location The operator establishes which Emergency Authority is required by answering the call with Emergency which service If the caller needs to be asked for their number this
262. young school children Apart from the Strategic Framework for Combating Malicious Hoax 999 Calls DCOL9 96 many sep arate initiatives have been taken by the PTO s Police Fire and Ambulance services to educate the public as well as reduce the number of hoax calls 30 Fire Service Manual It is interesting to note that the Coastguard receive very few malicious or hoax calls Education and advice to the public is ongoing and will become more important if the Police and Ambulance services introduce second priority numbers for minor emergencies HM Fire Service Inspectorate and CACFOA advise against Fire Services using a minor emer gency number It is not generally recommended that persons should call the fire brigade by dialling the fire sta tion or the fire control number direct and the rea sons for this are as follows Directly dialled calls cannot be monitored by the BT operator It is seldom possible to trace the origin of a directly dialled call The call would be delayed if the fire brigade number were found to be engaged or out of order Payphone users would need to insert coins which in an emergency might not be readily available Entries in telephone books A standard page is included in the preface of all tele phone books on the use of the 999 112 emergency service Administrative telephone numbers of fire brigade headquarters and other departments or estab lishments should be inserte

Fire Service Manual Volume 1 Fire Service Technology, Equipment

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