OK... so I'm Matt, and I'm a 9-1-1 Police / Fire / EMS Dispatcher for a police department in New Jersey. I've been on the job for about 5 months. Before that, I was a computer technician for a number of years. Why I left the IT field... I have no idea. That's enough for the intro.
There's something that BUGS me at work. When the 911 phone rings, it's supposed to come up with a name, address, blah blah blah on the Automated Location Identification (ALI) screen. That's all fine and dandy, but what about when it's a cell phone? There are different "phases" of wireless phones. All of the newer phones are wireless phase 2 so it tries its best to show the location of the caller... well, actually, the phone. MOST of the time, the ALI screen will show phase 2 for a cell phone... giving me GPS coordinates. Let's get this straight now... if it gives me phase 1, I'm pretty much screwed for finding them unless they tell me. I can try to refresh the ALI information, but that doesn't always work. Anyway, so when it gives me GPS coordinates, I CAN'T DO ANYTHING WITH THEM! My computer aided dispatch (CAD) console doesn't have Internet access. How am I supposed to find out where these people are? I've been saying almost since I started we should get access to either Google Maps or Google Earth, but nothing has happened, and, as far as I know, nothing is in the works either. That's really not good, especially if it's from one of those deactivated phones that doesn't have service, but the caller can still dial 911. I can't call that number back. The only thing I can do is call a local town that actually has the ability to look up coordinates. That's not always accurate though. At one point I had 3 officers knocking on doors on an entire street. At least it wasn't a long street. I thought I heard something about a grant for agencies in the county to purchase equipment needed to get the location of wireless callers.
Anyway, that's enough complaining for the first post.
Clear and Unavailable
Dispatcher 6
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3 comments:
The only other option I know of is to call the cell pone company and file an extigent circumstance form, but that still is only going to give you the address to where the cell phone is billed. It is frustrating, and you would think the capabilites would be better with all the technology available
Hi Matt. I came over from Dysfunctional. I am a dispatcher in IN. We have an independant mapping software on our computer that pops up a Google type map with a big white cirlce around the location of the call. It even pin points cell calls. Well, except right now because my computer blew up and now the map software needs to be reinstalled.
Computer... *&%&
OMG how the hell do you live w/o internet? No good there.
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