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Comment by mike_d | Hacker News Reader

> I would be interested in hearing the opinion of the local crews, if he actually was helpful.

Absolutely not.

He identified himself as "comm tech" in his transmission. At that point the person managing traffic logs in the Communications Unit checks their sheet provided by the Operations Section and sees no "comm tech" assigned to the incident. This gets reported up to the Logistics Section Officer and then escalated to the Incident Commander.

Every asset in the field is checked out, logged, and checked back in for safety reasons. You now have to divert resources to a search and rescue mission for your missing "comm tech" and the entire command post is going back rechecking EVERYTHING.

Edit: https://www.fema.gov/sites/default/files/2020-07/fema_nims_d... if you want to torture yourself with the details of how these types of things are handled

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>Absolutely not.

You would absolutely not want to learn the opinions of the fire crews about if he was helpful or not?

Seems pretty clear that they are replying to the 'if he was helpful'...

Ok, so they are just making up an answer and speaking on behalf of the fire crew.

Just reading the other comments here and you can easily see the quotes others have provided from the relevant emergency people who told this guy to stop, in person, from interfering.

He ignored them and deserves this fine.

One of the things that happened post 9/11 was all emergency response was standardized on the national ICS system (which I included in an edit to my original post), so a police officer or a firefighter from Kansas can work an incident in New Mexico if they need to because all the procedures are the same. Being certified in ICS my response to you is the same you'd get from the IC of the fire.

Nothing about this clown show was helpful, because you have now created an incident within an incident that diverts the most critical assets (command and control) from what they should be doing to direct the attack on the fire.

So it wouldn't be helpful if he told them the firemen were working over a live gas line or that there were a dozen schoolchildren trapped in a fire?

I get that he was probably a nuisance, I just think it is absurd that everyone here is speaking as if they have perfect certainty.

I guess the moral is never talk to cops, even if it would save lives.

If you need the info to be delivered immediately, you could probably use that frequency.

If it can wait 2 minutes, then use the proper channels. This guy could have waited 2 minutes, if he had any useful information at all.

This isn't "don't talk to cops", this is more like "don't jump into a moving cop car to tell them something".

It would be helpful, just not the way he did.

During his transmissions he was blocking any other transmission on that frequency, maybe an important message couldn’t be sent due to his „help“. Those frequencies are for emergency personnel only and it can‘t be used as a public tip line.

Imagine there would be more of his kind on those frequencies, all of them „helping“. Each one thinking that their help is essential, but none of them actually being in emergency response teams, just sitting in their lawn chairs giving helpful advise.

The correct way to communicate this information is to call 911. Operators are highly trained in collecting the right information and getting it out to the right people quickly.

Or hell even just saying "break break, I am a civilian with life saving information" and waiting would have been acceptable in an emergency. The comms manager would have directed him to change to a backup frequency and taken the information. Instead he tried to "fit in" and play cool guy.

As a holder of multiple FCC licenses, he is obligated by law to know this stuff, which is why I am being overly hard on him.

>The fire operations section chief instructed Frawley to cease operations on the frequency and returned to his post.

They thought he was so helpful they told him to stop.

I mean if it was helpful, it would count in his favor and might reduce the fine, but he still broke the FCC rules for his licenses which is unacceptable. Wasn't there another channel he could communicate on outside of the reserved frequencies?

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