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Paper maps, two-way radios: how firefighting tech is stuck in the past

theguardian.com

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Re: Paper maps, two-way radios: how firefighting tech is stuck in the past

#31

Post by vidanay »

duiker101 wrote: post #28
klyrs wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was in search and rescue, we made extensive use of paper maps. Nice rite-in-the-rain jobbers, useful in a downpour. And sometimes we'd need to take notes on them. With a pencil! In the rain! grumble grumble kids these days . Try that with a capacitive touchscreen...

I am one of the kids of these days, but I know absolutely nothing about anything so I don't mean this in a mean spirited way but I am genuinely curious: if you have paper in the rain, can't you have a water resistant device? Generally, they are both thing that I wouldn't necessarily associate with doing well in the rain...

Try this: Put on your winter gloves, climb in the the shower, turn the water on ice cold, and see how well you are able to operate your iPad.

At least with paper maps and a #2 pencil, you have a fighting chance in those conditions.

Re: Paper maps, two-way radios: how firefighting tech is stuck in the past

#32

Post by cinntaile »

duiker101 wrote: post #28
klyrs wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was in search and rescue, we made extensive use of paper maps. Nice rite-in-the-rain jobbers, useful in a downpour. And sometimes we'd need to take notes on them. With a pencil! In the rain! grumble grumble kids these days . Try that with a capacitive touchscreen...

I am one of the kids of these days, but I know absolutely nothing about anything so I don't mean this in a mean spirited way but I am genuinely curious: if you have paper in the rain, can't you have a water resistant device? Generally, they are both thing that I wouldn't necessarily associate with doing well in the rain...

Nowadays decent hiking maps are made of Tyvek or a similar material so they're waterproof. A water resistant device works too but not as well when there are raindrops on it. I guess the moisture messes with the capacitive screen, the device can also stop working at a really incovenient time. That can't really happen with a regular map.

Re: Paper maps, two-way radios: how firefighting tech is stuck in the past

#33

Post by _mgr »

h4waii wrote: post #8

So, ATAK already does this with pretty good success [0] but it generally works best with full connectivity. You can deploy it over mesh technology for places that don't have Internet connectivity, and then backhaul the data to a monitoring center. Of course it has those LEO/MIL ties which might really be holding it back. 0. https://www.govtech.com/em/safety/Corona-Fire-Department-Enh...

Follow on from this...

https://www.civtak.org/2020/08/20/the-future-of-firefighting...

https://www.civtak.org/2020/08/18/tak-aircraft-on-grizzly-cr...

Re: Paper maps, two-way radios: how firefighting tech is stuck in the past

#34

Post by HumblyTossed »

Okay, so after 100s of millions of dollars we'll have:

Certified intrinsically safe (why not?) and fire resistant tablets with bluetooth and cell radios. We'll pay verizon to put up towers in the middle of nowhere. We'll redesign gloves to be touch sensitive. Redesign helmets to have bluetooth and speakers. Custom software all round. Etc.

After all said and done, we'll realize walkie talkies and paper maps are more reliable.

Re: Paper maps, two-way radios: how firefighting tech is stuck in the past

#35

Post by [deleted] »

rsync wrote: post #11
Aloha wrote: post #2

As someone who builds telecommunications systems for first responders, I'm not convinced that a chat service, and online technology is better than narrowband 2-way radio, and paper maps. These backcountry places often have no cell service, and paper maps don't have technical difficulties - and are easy/cheap to duplicate and hand out, in addition to being naturally rugged. So this means, expensive non-terrestrial com…

I am a firefighter/EMR in California. There is nothing wrong with two way radios, per se . The issue is the FCC "typing" rules that disallow a single device operating on multiple, disparate frequency bands. Imagine I respond to a car accident and need to call for a helicopter and arrange a landing zone. In this situation, I will be juggling four brick sized radios throughout the duration of that call.[1] Possibly whi…

[deleted]

Re: Paper maps, two-way radios: how firefighting tech is stuck in the past

#36

Post by schoolornot »

Aloha wrote: post #20
rsync wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a firefighter/EMR in California. There is nothing wrong with two way radios, per se . The issue is the FCC "typing" rules that disallow a single device operating on multiple, disparate frequency bands. Imagine I respond to a car accident and need to call for a helicopter and arrange a landing zone. In this situation, I will be juggling four brick sized radios throughout the duration of that call.[1] Possibly whi…

There is nothing in Part 90 that prevents a multi-band device, Motorola, Harris and Kenwood both sell multiband P25 devices (V/U, U/800, V/LTE, et al). Motorola, Harris and Kenwood (tait as well) also support multiple trunking/signaling systems on the same device as well. What you're running into is agencies not wanting to interop - GMRS is a special case, because its a licensed by rule service (Part 95), but everyth…

It doesn’t help that the protocols are all proprietary and/or encumbered with patents. An open source version of Brandmeister would go a long, long, way.

Re: Paper maps, two-way radios: how firefighting tech is stuck in the past

#37

Post by Aloha »

rsync wrote: post #27
Aloha wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is nothing in Part 90 that prevents a multi-band device, Motorola, Harris and Kenwood both sell multiband P25 devices (V/U, U/800, V/LTE, et al). Motorola, Harris and Kenwood (tait as well) also support multiple trunking/signaling systems on the same device as well. What you're running into is agencies not wanting to interop - GMRS is a special case, because its a licensed by rule service (Part 95), but everyth…

Yes, there are multi-frequency devices, but they are all in the same "range" or "band" or "grouping" of frequencies (whatever it is we're calling that). I'm talking about a combination hi-band, lo-band, GMRS, P25, paging, etc. radio. I should be able to tune National Weather Service on it if I want to. When I talk about this, ham guys get all huffy about FCC this and that and what kind of anarchy do I want to live in…

You can order a radio with High VHF, UHF, 700/800, 900, LTE or with any of the two above, Harris has the (it does something we affectionately call DC-Daylight - aka, the entire EM spectrum), SG-XG100 I think does basically everything, 30MHz to 1000MHz.

Low Band is a special case, because of the sheer antenna size, which is huge, and unwieldily low band handhelds are also near useless.

Ignore the ham guys, they dont know much about part 90 (other than they are correct that the Baofeng Radios are probably not type accepted.).

Re: Paper maps, two-way radios: how firefighting tech is stuck in the past

#38

Post by Aloha »

schoolornot wrote: post #36
Aloha wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is nothing in Part 90 that prevents a multi-band device, Motorola, Harris and Kenwood both sell multiband P25 devices (V/U, U/800, V/LTE, et al). Motorola, Harris and Kenwood (tait as well) also support multiple trunking/signaling systems on the same device as well. What you're running into is agencies not wanting to interop - GMRS is a special case, because its a licensed by rule service (Part 95), but everyth…

It doesn’t help that the protocols are all proprietary and/or encumbered with patents. An open source version of Brandmeister would go a long, long, way.

None of the protocols are encumbered, P25 and DMR are both open standards - the audio codecs they use however, are not.

Brandmeister wouldn't fix anything in the public safety space as nothing in public safety is DMR.

Re: Paper maps, two-way radios: how firefighting tech is stuck in the past

#39

Post by TeMPOraL »

klyrs wrote: post #29
duiker101 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am one of the kids of these days, but I know absolutely nothing about anything so I don't mean this in a mean spirited way but I am genuinely curious: if you have paper in the rain, can't you have a water resistant device? Generally, they are both thing that I wouldn't necessarily associate with doing well in the rain...

My phone works fine in the rain. The touchscreen is garbage, because it can't differentiate my finger from a puddle on the screen. Granted, there are pressure sensitive touchscreens out there. If you want a good map that you can take notes on, you'll need a custom app. In my experience, writing on screens is very fussy business. So you might be able to a custom app, custom hardware, maybe spending thousands per unit.…

> Edit: this "rain" crap is a digression from the "fire" problem. I don't have experience there, but I imagine "the electric infrastructure and cell towers burnt down" is more of an issue... again, paper and pencil wins.

WRT. paper vs. touchscreens and fire, I imagine two extra factors come into play. One, protective equipment may not play well with touchscreens (are there capacitive screen-friendly pads for gloves that won't burn off?). Two, heat in general. Phones and tablets don't like it all that much, and can easily start behaving weirdly and/or shut down when being used in a car in summer, much less next to an actual fire.

Re: Paper maps, two-way radios: how firefighting tech is stuck in the past

#40

Post by rdiddly »

tomc1985 wrote: post #14

I really hate seeing articles like these. There are many reasons why groups may not choose to participate in the endless technology death march that is updates and instability. Is the new fancy tool reliable? Does it truly fit into its adopter's workflow? Is it faster and simpler and more reliable than existing tech? Or is it just shiny and backed by some idiot VC and they're trying to push adoption prematurely? This…

I love articles like this, just because I can't wait to see them satirized on n-gate.com. My favorite moment was when they said radio allows only one person to talk at once (like that's a bad thing).

But yeah, how did you get from the bedroom to the kitchen today? Was it by futuristic nucular (sic) hoverboard, or did you use million-year-old "walking" technology you damned stuck-in-the-past Luddite?

Firefighting is one of those things that takes place when various types of shit are hitting the fan. No one involved should hitch their wagon to the availability of any advanced-ish technology, including an internet connection.

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