Friday fragments - comms news from around the web for 17 January 2014

A weekly round-up of critical communications and public safety radio news for Friday, 17 January 2014.

Lives put at risk by CB use. A spokesperson for the Australian Citizens Radio Emergency Monitors group has told the ABC that truck drivers and recreational users of CB radio are putting lives at risk by clogging up the UHF bands and not following proper radio procedures. “It becomes a bit of a frustration because the people that are monitoring these channels are volunteers," Martin Howells is quoted as saying.

Volunteers trained in emergency comms. The Fraser Coast Council in Queensland has trained volunteer wardens in disaster management and radio communications in preparation for the cyclone season. Fraser Coast Mayor Gerard O'Connell told the Fraser Coast Chronicle that the wardens' role is to get information to the Local Disaster Co-ordination Centre. “The wardens' role is to channel information to us which is used as part of the coordinated response and recovery effort," he said.

Follow an emergency call. A US radio station has produced a two-part special on what happens when a person calls 911. The program - The Race to An Emergency - reveals the processes that are put into action and by whom, and features a range of interviews with first responders, researchers and emergency centre operators. Part 1 of the program is available on the KPFA.org website.

Towers to weather the storm. A US senator says that money must be found to harden five emergency communication radio towers on Long Island so that they could withstand another Sandy-like superstorm. Senator Charles Schumer says US$700,000 is needed to prevent the kind of communications problems encountered when Sandy hit.

Truck crash affects 911 centre. A semitrailer that crashed into a telephone pole in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, was probably responsible for a UPS failing, leading to a breakdown of dispatch channels from the local 911 control centre. But despite the problems caused, Alvin Henderson, chief of the county's Department of Emergency Services, told the TribLive website that the overall effect was minimal. “The mobile data terminals never went down, so they were still able to get the information they needed," he said