→ continue reading]]> In January, the 800MHz Advisory Board voted to revise their meeting schedule from monthly to quarterly. As a result, there is no meeting today. The next meeting is scheduled for Thursday May 24th at 1:30pm in the Emergency Operations Center.

See the calendar page for this and other upcoming events.

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The January meeting of the 800MHz Advisory Board is scheduled for Thursday 1/26/2012 at 1:30pm. It will be held in the first floor conference center at the Government Services Center.

Location correction: It will be held in the EOC.

See the calendar page for this and other upcoming events.

→ continue reading]]> BRICS has been notified that Cincinnati Bell Telephone (CBT) will be working on fiber optic cables affecting the Trenton dispatch center (5COM) tonight. The work is scheduled to begin at 2200 hrs but it is unclear when the work might affect the particular strands of fiber serving the radio network. In the past, similar CBT work has happened several hours after it was originally scheduled.

Butler County Information Services (BCCIS) tells us that 5COM may experience an outage tonight due to the CBT effort. It is not expected to affect any other center’s consoles. BRICS and BCCIS technicians will be monitoring the network and ready to respond to issues, or to help an affected center during the outage.

Dispatchers: Should your consoles lose connectivity to the system, follow normal backup procedures. Review your BRICS Dispatcher Emergency Guide, particularly the ‘Console Failure’ section, to be familiar with these procedures.

Field Users: You should expect no disruption of radio service. This maintenance could affect dispatch consoles only. Dispatchers would revert to backup equipment were an outage to occur.

Contact the BRICS office with any questions.

→ continue reading]]> The BRICS office will be closed for the holiday on the following days:

• Friday, December 23rd 2011
• Monday, December 26th 2011
• Friday, December 30th 2011
• Monday, January 2nd 2012

BRICS will continue to have on-call technicians during this time, and you will be able to reach them in the same way you would on any weekend or evening. Call (513) 785-1299 for assistance and use the prompt for the on-call technician; you will be forwarded to their mobile phone. See the Contact Us page for more information on reaching BRICS. Our schedule and other events can be found on the Calendar page.

→ continue reading]]> The 800MHz Advisory Board and the PSAP Committee meetings scheduled for November and December have been canceled due to holiday schedules. They will resume on their normal days in January.

Updated meeting times and locations are added to our calendar.

→ continue reading]]> The first nationwide test of the Emergency Alert System (EAS) will take place at 2:00 PM (Eastern Standard Time) today, November 9th.

APCO is cautioning its members that “PSAPs could experience an onslaught of calls when the [test] is conducted on Wednesday. During the national EAS test, no matter where citizens tune their radio or television (broadcast, cable or satellite), they will hear the same EAS tones and message. Public overreaction is a distinct possibility.” They recommend that PSAP managers prepare call-takers for the possible influx by giving them a prepared response statement.

More information:
http://butlersheriff.org/radio/2011/10/nationwide-eas-test/

→ continue reading]]> The advisory board meeting that would normally be held today, October 27th, has been canceled.

Updated meeting times and locations are added to our calendar.

→ continue reading]]> The first nationwide test of the Emergency Alert System (EAS) will take place at 2:00 PM (Eastern Standard Time) on November 9, 2011. Radio and TV broadcast stations, cable television networks and other media services test the EAS locally on a monthly or weekly basis, but a national test has never been conducted.

FEMA and the FCC need to know the system will work as intended should public safety officials ever need to send an alert or warning to a large region of the U.S.

What is the EAS?

“The Emergency Alert System (EAS) is a media communications-based alerting system that is designed to transmit emergency alerts and warnings to the American public at the national, state and local levels. The EAS has been in existence since 1994, and its precursor, the Emergency Broadcast System (EBS), began in 1963.” Source: FCC

Do I need to do anything?

The most important thing for dispatch centers and public safety agencies is to be aware of the test and be prepared to answer the public’s questions. It’s important to:

• understand what the EAS is and how it works – visit the FCC link below
• know that FEMA will be sending this out with a “live” national alert code, and not a test code – it will be presented as an actual emergency announcement – to test the actual working order reliability of legacy EAS equipment

More Information

Emergency Alert System Nationwide Test – FCC
fcc.gov/nationwideEAStest

Countdown to Nationwide EAS Test | Is Public Safety Ready? – APCO PSC
psc.apcointl.org/2011/10/13/countdown-to-nationwide-eas-test/

→ continue reading]]> The 9-1-1 Planning Committee meeting scheduled for tomorrow (Friday), October 14th 2011, has been cancelled.

It has been rescheduled for Friday, November 18th 2011 at 9:00 am.