Rensselaer radio committee asks county to stop repeating full initial dispatches to all units

The Rensselaer County Radio Communications Committee voted May 27 to submit an official request to the Bureau of Public Safety asking that dispatchers stop automatically repeating full initial dispatch information to all responding units.

Committee minutes say members raised examples where the repetition tied up Main Dispatch and impeded a first-on-scene chief officer’s ability to obtain airtime to provide updated conditions. The minutes cite the Field Operations Guide, noting that increased dispatch volumes "must be efficiently reduced," and argue that replaying full initial dispatches to every responding unit adds unnecessary traffic while providing little additional benefit.

Committee members pointed to alternate notification methods now in use, including minitor playback, Two-Tone detect via laR, and the county Mobility app. Communications Center Supervisor John A. Mainello III emphasized that laR/IAR is a secondary notification and should not be treated as an official dispatch method: "IAR is a secondary notification WE CANNOT CONTROL, therefore we do not consider it to be an official dispatch notification," his written report said.

The committee’s formal recommendation does not prevent dispatchers from passing along updated or critical information to responders; it targets the automatic, verbatim repetition of the initial dispatch. The committee recorded the approved recommendation in the minutes and will forward it to Bureau leadership for consideration. The Radio Communications Committee will next meet July 22 at ESTC.