On The Road with RoadieRich

Following on from the training I spoke about in my last post , we ran an exercise to put the newly learned skills to practice. We split everyone into teams, leaving myself and one other person as Net Control.  The teams dispersed into separate rooms, each taking a radio with them.  They also took an information sheet and three cards, each naming an "asset" they might have that someone else will need.   For instance, the First Aid station had a card saying "Patient report", which was needed by Incident Command.  Using the Net format, each team had to ask over the radio for the items that they needed, deliver the assets they had as directed by Net Control, and report back when an asset was delivered to them. The information sheets each had a description of the scenario, a personalized example of how to request a specific asset, and a list of "haves" and "needs". Who had What We had five teams, not counting Net Control, and each team had three asset...

I recently gave some training to the Ottawa County Medical Reserve Corp  on radio use. Part of the training I was asked to provide is on a principle called radio nets.  If you're familiar with working with a dispatcher, you'll be used to how radio nets function. You can see the presentation here .  In a normal radio setup, everyone can talk to everyone else.  There's no control except self-control. Under a net, that changes.  All communications go through a Net Control station:   Why?  Three main reasons: It's clearer who is talking to who There's less talking over each other There's less confusion This ultimately results in a better response to emergencies. A net might seem slower than free-for-all, but it actually works out to be more efficient in the long run;  like how a four-way stop works: if everyone treated it as a free-for-all, there wouldd be chaos and collisions.  Instead, with the rules in place, everyone knows when to take their ...