Guest guest Posted March 30, 2000 Report Share Posted March 30, 2000 >And you guys that don't use paper, your nuts..Are you trying to prove >something? just can't figure that one out. > >jamie in iowa > , when I have 10-25 units on a channel, running 100-200 calls on a busy shift, stopping everything that moves when it isn't, I would be nuts to try to write everything down and THEN try to key it in!!!!! I would have to stay over 4 hrs after my shift was over just to get caught up and the times would not be right. I'm not trying to prove anything, I have nothing TO prove; my work and the respect I get from my officers speak for themselves. Kim Chattanooga, TN PD I'm going to have to agree with Kim here. We have five districts in our county. We have anywhere from 12-20 officers in the middle of the night to 80-100 or so officers on our busiest channel in the evening. On a busy weekend evening in 4hrs on just one channel you could dispatch 75-100 calls (of course this doesn't include traffic stops, suspicious situations officers call out with, listings, warrant services, etc). The only possible way a dispatcher can keep up with the radio traffic is by typing everything into CAD immediately. It needs to be in there at some point and there is no time to duplicate work. We have one employee (on my shift, midnights) who writes EVERYTHING down, then puts it into CAD. He has been around for a long time and no one stops him from doing this. When he gets on even a " quiet " radio, he curses up a storm. I believe it's because he never really catches up with the officers because he's so busy duplicating his work. When our CAD is down (luckily it is pretty rare) we do revert to cards. That is definitely interesting for dispatchers like myself who were trained on CAD only. Last fall I had my first bailout/foot chase on cards. It looked like the top of my console had exploded paper everywhere. I think the only reason I didn't have any real problems was because whether using cards or CAD, all the important stuff is in the dispatchers head. I think it's part of that magical process when everything just clicks and you actually " become " a dispatcher. Hey, every department is different and we all do things our own way - the way that works best for us!! Amy Montgomery County Police, MD ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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