VII. Opening / Closing the Office
Now that you know how to use the radio, you can open and close the BC-EMS office (if you have a shift very early in the morning or very late in the evening). According to federal law, radio stations in the emergency services must sign on and off the air whenever the transmitting equipment is turned on or off.
Opening
To Sign on the Air
- Turn on the base station. When "Pager No.= " appears, keep F3 depressed and say:
"This is station KMB-268 of the Brooklyn College Emergency Medical Squad, operating on the assigned frequency of 462.975 Megahertz. This is dispatcher (your squad #) signing on at (state the time)."
Remember:- You should pronounce 'two, six, eight" (not "two sixty-eight").
- The same thing goes for "four, six, two dot nine, seven, five."
- Say the time using the military system.
- Trainees have no squad number and instead use the number 100.
- Once you become a full dispatcher, you get a unique three-digit squad number.
- You don't have to memorize this message. It is located on a piece of paper near the base station.
- Call security at extension 5511.
- Say that you are calling from EMS and that you want to advise them that we are open.
- Ask for a name from the person who answered the phone.
- If you are asked for your number, just give your squad number (100 for trainees).
- In the log book:
- Write the time and "signed on the air, notified security of opening (security officer's name), the crew members signing in."
- If anyone else is signing in, you can add him or her at the same time.
- Example: 09:32 Signed on the air, notified security of opening (Gomez), R. Curran in as Med-1, J. Krivoruk in as BC-1, Y. Abraham in as disp., J. Doe in as disp (t).
- Call RCC:
- Dial 999-2928 (the number is located on the dispatcher's desk).
- When someone picks up, tell him or her that you are 93John and you would like to sign on.
- Make sure to get their badge number.
- If no one picks up, call again later.
- Log it in the book ["Signed on with RCC (badge #609)"]
- Get hospital statuses.
- See section VIII.
- When calling for hospital statuses, ask the dispatcher to verify that we are signed on. If he or she says that we are not, call RCC again to make sure that they put us into the computer.
- Log both the hospital statuses and that you verified that we're signed on in the book.
Checking the Messages
- Get a pen and paper.
- Pick up 5858 and listen. If there is a rapid beeping, then we have messages.
- If there are messages, Dial 5600.
- At the prompt, enter our access code: 5859.
- Listen to the prompt to pick one of the following options:
- Press 1 to hear messages.
- Press 4 to delete messages.
- Press 5 to save messages
- Write down the messages.
- Hang up to end the call.
Closing
- Keep F3 depressed and say: "This is station KMB-268 of the Brooklyn College Emergency Medical Squad, operating on the assigned frequency of 462.975 Megahertz. This is dispatcher (your squad #) signing off at (state the time)."
- Turn off the base station.
- Notify security that we are closed. Don't forget to get a name.
- Notify RCC that we're signing off.
- Verify with MARS that we are signed off.
- Write down what you did in the log book.
Example:
18:09 signed off the air, notified security of closing (Officer Sheryl), All crew out, all equipment in.
18:11 Signed off with RCC (#607).
18:15 Verified sign off with MARS (#8676).
