team flags / rescue team callsign handling

[caver456]

Recent callsign conventions for NCSSAR have been changing a bit to mimic other teams.

This should all be clarified and confirmed with the unit leader.

There are two changes in question:

1) The main change is that the first team to arrive at the subject should assume control of the scene (e.g. establish a 'mini-IC' to manage incoming resources etc.) and should prepend the word 'rescue' to their callsign.

So, if team 104 is the first to reach the subject, they become 'team rescue 104' or just 'rescue 104'.

2) Also, the lead medical person should use a different callsign, such as '104 medical'.

How can radiolog be enhanced to handle these cases?

An idea for 1) is to 'set a flag' on team 104, which would visually highlight that team's tab, and would prepend 'RESCUE TEAM:' or such to each entry as long as the flag is set.

For 2), it seems like no extra handling is needed - that the first call from '104 medical' should result in a new callsign / new tab '104med' or such. Possibly set a similar flag for that callsign. This is all up to the radio operator to do - either change callsign if the radio has called in before, or, set callsign if it's the first call from that radio.

[johnpictin]

With Castlegar SAR we leave our team names intact for the duration of the task assignment. Sometimes we will have an additional team that is nearby amalgamate with the rescue team in order to provide additional medical support or manpower to facilitate a carryout. Even then we would just reuse one of the teams names unless we created new task assignment.

So I think for us option 2 is the simplest, as in don't complicate things and let the radio operator handle it.

John Pictin IT/Comms Section Lead Castlegar Search and Rescue

On Fri, Feb 23, 2024, 9:28 AM Tom Grundy @.***> wrote:

Recent callsign conventions for NCSSAR have been changing a bit to mimic other teams.

This should all be clarified and confirmed with the unit leader.

There are two changes in question:

1. The main change is that the first team to arrive at the subject should assume control of the scene (e.g. establish a 'mini-IC' to manage incoming resources etc.) and should prepend the word 'rescue' to their callsign.

So, if team 104 is the first to reach the subject, they become 'team rescue 104' or just 'rescue 104'.

1. Also, the lead medical person should use a different callsign, such as '104 medical'.

How can radiolog be enhanced to handle these cases?

An idea for 1) is to 'set a flag' on team 104, which would visually highlight that team's tab, and would prepend 'RESCUE TEAM:' or such to each entry as long as the flag is set.

For 2), it seems like no extra handling is needed - that the first call from '104 medical' should result in a new callsign / new tab '104med' or such. Possibly set a similar flag for that callsign. This is all up to the radio operator to do - either change callsign if the radio has called in before, or, set callsign if it's the first call from that radio.

— Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/ncssar/radiolog/issues/729, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AM6GMSVIDKWEUA5NBCNE6VDYVDGUPAVCNFSM6AAAAABDXCTZV6VHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43ASLTON2WKOZSGE2TCNJRGA4DCNQ . You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread.Message ID: @.***>

[caver456]

@johnpictin thanks for the feedback, that would be my preference too, but our team decided to go with the name changes. I can't really say which way works better for them in the field, but I do see the logic of the name changes. Unfortunately it kind of turns things into a bowl of spaghetti after the rescue is done.

Either way, from radiolog point of view, the question is what if any enhancements to make, that accommodates either way of doing things. For the 'keep the original callsigns always' method, there aren't any enhancements needed, since that is already working.

Anyway this came up for us again at a MRA mock test recently. I got to be radio operator to see some of these questions first-hand and to take a bunch of notes. Here's what happened:

• team 101 became the rescue group on arrival at the scene, but there was never any clear message about it such as "team 101 is now rescue 101" or 'rescue team 101' or 'rescue group 101' or 'rescue group 1' or 'rescue group' or any other variation. Seemed like the de-facto callsign after a while was 'rescue group 1'.

• later callsigns that came over the radio: 'rescue rigging group 1'; 'rescue group 2'; 'medical 101'; 'medic 1'; 'medic 2'. We're sorting this out within the team, but the point is that there may be an interesting set of new callsigns.

• when rescue group called to say the scenario was complete, we (ops, deputy IC, and comms) decided to ask them to revert to original callsigns for the trek back down the mountain. They decided not to do this. Also working this out within the team, but it also brings up the point that radiolog can't make any assumptions about what callsigns will be after the rescue.

• changing callsigns - effectively creating a new team - meant that the original team tabs (101 etc) became 'inactive' and would flash red with timeouts for the rest of the day. This is not a big deal as long as the operator is aware of what's going on, but handing off to a different operator who may not be aware of this could cause them to do a welfare check on a team that's effectively inactive. Maybe a way to indicate this in radiolog would be helpful? Probably not a good idea to just disable timeouts for that team, because we want to restart timeouts with their next incoming call. That restart of timeouts could be automatic.... is it safe to wait for their next incoming call? Basically to put a callsign on inactive status, and the next incoming call removes that inactive flag which restarts timeouts? Would probably need some type of visual indication...