Batboard

Does anyone have a video clip of radio behavior in Failsoft - the beeps and the flashing display? Trying to put together a little training video and I don't have a way to emulate a failsoft to give folks an idea of what it means and how their radios will act. Site trunking would be nice too.

Thanks

PM please

Robert Glenn

Run up the hill and pull the plug on the controller?

I don't think we're quite ready for that kind of drill just yet...

It is funny how people react when a system does go into failsoft. Most have been told about it but they still don't get it. One system I was on everybody was yelling at everybody else for being on their private channel. Sure would be nice to do a little training with all the users from time to time

com501 wrote:Run up the hill and pull the plug on the controller?

LMFAO... Because I did it years ago on a 900 SmartNet SMR to test functionality, with lots of multiple notices to the users in advance. Didn't really help. I wish I had a recorder going on some of those channels, sounded like the old days on channel 19 on the CB with the taxi drivers and plumbers calling each other out...

Ben wrote:It is funny how people react when a system does go into failsoft. Most have been told about it but they still don't get it. One system I was on everybody was yelling at everybody else for being on their private channel. Sure would be nice to do a little training with all the users from time to time

Well, I can tell you of one trunking system that causes a failure each and every week for a period of time to give all the users the real time training with the system in the "failsoft" mode. This way they know what it is, how the radio will react and how to work with the system in that mode.

Think the weekly training is a great self imposed, learn all about it in real time move. Doesn't matter what emergency is going on. You can't get any better training than to experience the real thing. After you do it enough times, it becomes second nature. This way you don't end up with a "Keystone Cop" flick and the mass hysteria that goes with it. The law and fire boys all have to live with the limitations of the system while it is not trunking. Each agency gets it own RF channel to do with as needed for the duration of the outage. Even the dispatch center has to work with how the system plays during the drill time.

More agencies need to follow with this type of training. Not putting up with all the crying and screaming when they do get an actual trunking failure and no one remembers what is going on or what they have to do to keep on working with what is left.

Jim

What Jim said. Our city system goes into failsoft every Wednesday morning for a period of roughly 10-15 minutes. Never has there been a real "problem" amongst the users. It's a great way to get the users accustomed to what can and has happened and it also serves as a good little training exercise of sorts for the Dispatch centres when they have to pull out their back up radio equipment.

If there is anyway you can implement a weekly test or even a two times a month kind of deal, that would be a great way to give the users a real feel of what could happen. And like Jim said, the system goes into failsoft every Wednesday regardless of what emergencies are active, just like what could happen in real life.

-Colby

We have two drills coming up, one "just for fun" and the second for some system upgrades. I was wanting to put a video up on our intranet so people would have an idea beforehand how the radio will act & what it will sound like so it's not completely foriegn - not that it won't be. We've had failsoft events before and it has been chaos...

i used a type 1 commercial system back in the mid to late 90s and from time to time it would go into failsoft.
i had sooooo much fun talkin to other users that i normally might never talk to. but some times the channel would get out of hand, and i would have to contribute to the CB type communication, i was fond of the...."get off MY channel" phrase, it really stirs up peeps
i remember the constant carrier sound and the faint beep every 10 seconds or so, wish i had a recorder going back then.