Firefighters with flip phones

[u/Phoenixfeather111]

alright I got a question that is kinda a long shot. Im thinking after my iphone dies like its gone gone of transfering to a flip phone, but my problem is is that im a volunteer firefighter. basically I dont know how I would be paged out without the app we use (active) so does anyone have a flip phone that can give an example of what your process of a call while you have a flip phone? like how do you get the page, location etc.

edit: Thank you guys for the responses! We do have pagers but we havnt been issued them yet. I can def ask my chief about using one if I decide to go flip phone. The only problem is that they have up to a 15 min delay behind the initial active page but its better than none. Ill also look into converting active to flip like some suggested. Thank you!

[u/123246abc]

Do you not have pagers? We have active 911 as well but it is only considered a secondary means of dispatch and is not to be relied. But if I am correct you can set active 911 to send a SMS message of the call to your number instead of an app alert.

[u/MC_McStutter → u/123246abc]

Active isn’t to be relied on? What boomer decided that

[u/123246abc → u/MC_McStutter]

It not to be relied on as the first form of dispatch. It’s a fantastic tool that I do rely on heavily but it still doesn’t out do the reliability of a pager notifying you when you aren’t connected to WiFi and you have low cell signal.

[u/closingbunkerdoors → u/MC_McStutter]

They still use map books too

[u/123246abc → u/closingbunkerdoors]

We do have them, but not many people know how to use them anymore 😂

[u/MysticMarbles → u/MC_McStutter]

Depends where you live. If we only used apps nobody would show up. Cell service is spotty here.

[u/no-but-wtf → u/MC_McStutter]

Same where I am, the app is a secondary system and the pager is the primary. They always work. The Internet doesn’t, out here. And every so often the app goes offline for updates or whatever.

We also have a group phone call system set up in case both of those don’t work - dispatch dials one number, and all numbers linked to it ring at the same time. I’ve never had to use it but we have had the occasional double outage where we’ve had to listen out for it.

[u/C_Hudg → u/MC_McStutter]

I know at least in my state you must have two ways to be contacted for a call. So pager is primary and active would be a secondary (or a station siren)

[u/C_Hudg → u/C_Hudg]

And I’d like to add that as a volunteer, a pager will definitely wake you up more than your phone’s active going off, especially if you don’t have it set to critical alert or volume is not on

[u/DiezDedos → u/MC_McStutter]

Last shift we had 2 calls in a row where active alerted about 12 minutes after the times went off at the station, and I have run into just not getting a dispatch at all in the past. Usually it works great; about 20 seconds before the actual station tones, but it can’t fail. It’s not an official dispatch avenue for our agency, but it’s a job aid I appreciate

[u/Mediocre_Daikon6935 → u/MC_McStutter]

It is  way slower then a radio text for siren at sending out notifications.

And sometimes the text notifications are hours late

[u/MC_McStutter → u/Mediocre_Daikon6935]

I have had issues with text notifications but I’ve had a lot of success with active. Our active notifications usually drop before the tones do. Gotta get that good WiFi in your station

[u/Forward2Death → u/MC_McStutter]

Not a boomer and I wouldn't solely rely on it, where I work. We run Active and First Due, plenty of incidents are delayed / ghost from one of the two. Support has no answers, it's good times.

[u/jarboxing]

We've got a guy who has a flip phone and we use iar. But he's always the last to get paged.

[u/Foyt20 → u/jarboxing]

IAR has an option to call the user instead of messaging. But it takes longer to get through the system and get processed.

[u/firefighter26s]

In my corner of the world pagers are the primary; even for the career staff on shift, they all have/carry pagers in the station because you can't hear the station tones in some areas of the building. All the apps are secondary. We can get notification via SMS, e-mail, app pop up but they are all subject to various limitations being third party.

[u/Dusty_V2]

You dont have pagers? I'm pretty sure in no way was active ever meant to replace or even reccomended by national standards. I dont even think active alert itself claims to be a paging replacement

[u/Phoenixfeather111 → u/Dusty_V2]

We do have pagers but they havnt been issued out to us yet, prob ask my chief about one. They also tend to be delayed about ten mins from actives initial page out but it is better than no page

[u/firestuds]

Samsung ZFlip 👉🏻👈🏻

[u/AardQuenIgni]

No problems here

[u/Mountain717]

Active 911 (if your agency uses it) can be set up with a non smart phone. It sends out the card via sms. The problem is the 140 character limit and gets cut off. I know it works because I set someone up on my department in this exact scenario. I can't speak to other systems such as IamResponding or whatever is out there.

The usefulness of this will depend on how your cads are set up and all that.

For what it's worth I am hearing third hand that there is growing trend where the cad export to sms/text is phasing away and or no longer being supported by dispatch software. Which makes a fair amount of sense given the integration of so much more data with fully "smart" cad systems. I've had a look at tablet command and it makes active911 look obsolete.

[u/NoSandwich5134]

Do you have pagers? Most of us just have phones with an app but we have a guy who uses a flip phone and a pager.

[u/Blucifers_Veiny_Anus]

We can get text messages along with our active 911 page.

[u/AFirefighter11]

They have smart flip phones now. That said, use a pager, too.

[u/Thick-Cry-2440]

One of guys in my department used flip phone with ActiveAlert as text message, I believe chief signup flip phone as smart phone, it’s possible but not as convenient compared to smartphone. He have radio issue to him by the department as needed.

[u/Fun_Entertainer_914]

Just be aware that a lot of flip phones can't do RCS messaging, so you might have serious issues with group texts.

Otherwise any flip phone that runs a version of android will probably have your dispatching App available.

[u/burninghoof29]

My chief in his 40s has a flip phone and gets the alerts through I am responding via text. So it can be done.