On 3/3/2010 5:29 PM, WA3GIN wrote:
That is a real stretch...these things are to be used for incidents
that require them...how many many high rise building fires do you have
in your town...think you can live with a little interference every 20
yrs. Get real.
The numbers are public in every jurisdiction, so it's not hard to figure
out.
Best numbers I have for my municipality (Denver) is from 2008...
84,953 alarms
1043 fires
0 2-Alarm Fires
1 3-Alarm Fire
668 Structure Fires
17 Other Fires Within Structures
4201 "Other" Rescues (meaning not Automobiles)
This counts no portion of our suburbs, only the tiny City and Country of
Denver proper. Numerous suburbs also multiple structures higher than ten
stories.
We're just a little 3.5 million person city, compared to the big cities
on the coasts who are actually LESS likely to buy these things (they're
broke, remember? California thinks IOU's are U.S. Currency, last I heard)
We have just under three structure fires on average per day in just the
main portion of the city.
There's some tables at the end of the 2008 document that show all calls
that included "Hazardous Conditions"... that's probably not detailed
enough to assume a robot would be used, but it's a starting point for
analysis. Also columns on how often the Hazmat & Rescue teams were
called out.
Anyone that wants to can find out this information about your local
department... instead of guessing.
I'm not arguing whether or not these things will get used a lot, nor
their interference potential -- just pointing out that getting the real
numbers for my area took 5 minutes on Google and 5 more to type this.
Nate WY0X
