[Artemisia] Event Emergency

[Jennie Fauss]

You've mentioned a set channel that could be used because it would lessen 
the chance of an emergency being *missed* with normal chatter. The reality 
of that would be everyone would be tuned into that channel just in *case* of 
an emergency, not being nosey but wanting to be able to help the first time 
it was called for.

I've worked in two previous occupations that required the use of a hand held 
walkie talkie and a CB for transportation. We had over 60 people using one 
system and always during a 3 hour period twice a day -- I was a school bus 
driver-- Imagine the cross talk going on those airwaves. I also co-own an 
independent music production company.

We had a pre-set code that would indicate all channels clear in the case of 
an emergency.

Code Blue indication an announcement
Code yellow indicated radio silence, directions were given to a minor 
emergency.
Code red indicated all radio silence directions given for a *MAJOR* 
emergency.

The person calling the code gave a description, asked for *specific* people 
to attend to the emergency. The radio was to be kept clear until someone in 
a position of authority called *all clear*

An example would be the following (this was one of my own calls)
"Code blue, code blue, all clear, code blue. There has been an accident not 
involving my vehicle at (insert the appropriate intersection here), there 
appears to be no injuries to the passengers, all buses traveling in that 
area be advised to move to the left lane to avoid debris. Please call local 
police"

Someone from the main office would call and give the all clear signal at 
that point.

Family and department channels sound good but how often do the different 
departments of a major camping event need to communicate with each other? It 
would be easier yes to have a designated channel for specific functions but 
then you have to carry around a list with you just to get who you want. I 
highly doubt you wanna stop during an emergency, pull out your list, change 
the channel to medical, place your emergency call and then *hope* someone 
just happens to be on the channel and not the general one.

I would think it would be easy to call on a general channel, Code *insert 
non threatening color here* , would all *insert office here* please report 
immediately to *and location here* in *time frame here* for meetings as 
well.

You wouldnt have to have radio silence for that, but should call it a few 
more times just in case it was missed..

Just a couple of thoughts on the subject.
I myself do have 2 sets of walkie talkies (including one pair I have to have 
an FCC license for). Every large event I've handled for the music business 
used a set of alert codes to signal radio silence..

My apologies to anyone who didn't really wanna read my entire blah blah blah 
blah :)

~Fia
Fiametta Di Celio
The list lurker who is a comin' back