If you are within a reasonable or unreasonable distance to Baltimore you must come directly here to the Fire Expo. My legs ae already tired and my arms can not hold anymore information.

Cygnus Business Media which owns the Firehouse Expo have outdone themselves again.

This is very short today because I am headed back to the exhibitors hall. Time to replace my old rope harness.

If you are the grant writer for your organization or department you have to keep up on all the latest developments. With shrinking resources you also have to do more with less.

When it comes to training make sure you periodically visit the Department of Homeland Security's training grants section of their website.

From state and local preparedness grants to National Fire Academy reimbursement assistance opportunities, there may be something that fits your neeeds.

Heather Forsgren Weaver's article in today's RCR Wireless News focuses on Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff's refusal to endorese a funding formula for state grants.

"When I look at risk-based analysis, I don't see borders. I can't tell you which states are winners and losers in that formula...We want to be risk based, but we want to tailor our responses to specific areas."

Time to see which formula your represetatives and senators are using to see if it meets with your approval for whichever funding formula your department supports.

The COMCARE Alliance announced its support for a hard transition date.

In a press release dated July 20, 2005 Comcare's Board of Directors urged:

"...Congress to establish a set date for all television broadcasters to complete their move to new digital spectrum, freeing their current additional analog spectrum. Some is designated for public safety use and some for auction to private parties. Barry Luke, Division Chief of Fire Communications, Orange County, Florida Fire Rescue Department, stated that, "until the transition to digital television is complete, many law enforcement and other public safety agencies are being forced to operate on dangerously congested radio systems. The entire public safety community will be better equipped to handle emergency situations once this transition is complete.""

It is good to see COMCARE passing this official resolution.

Drew Clark writing in today's National Journal notes that:

"In spite of an FCC order that digital tuners be included in all large television sets and half of all mid-sized sets by July 1, the majority of such sets offered by retailers still do not include them.

Of the sets for sale on the Web site of the electronics retailer Best Buy Tuesday, 33 percent included tuners capable of receiving digital broadcasts. Circuit City's online percentage of digital sets was 44 percent, according to a survey of the two leading electronics retailers conducted by National Journal's Technology Daily.

The FCC has mandated that electronics companies build digital tuners into progressively smaller sets. On July 1, 2004, 50 percent of all sets 36 inches and higher needed tuners. As of this past July 1, 100 percent of those sets and 50 percent of sets 25 inches to 35 inches were to have such tuners."

Clark continues:

"Besides the requirement from the FCC, the number of television sets with digital tuners bears directly on the current debate in Congress over whether, when and how to order broadcasters to stop sending analog signals and begin sending only digital streams."

The devil is always in the details. Who knows how set percentages will impact the current dtv transition bill now before Congress? Let's hope no one uses the unexpected slow pace to push back spectrum availability.

What I do know is that I conducted a random test of twenty casual shoppers in the electronics area of a noted store at a nearby mall and only one customer knew what the heck I ws refering to the dtv transition.

I asked also asked them how fast emergency vehicles should respond in a genuine emergency. All said "immediately" or "as soon as possible." Interesting.

This months website of the month is the Risk Management Resource Center .

"The goal of the Risk Management Resource Center is to provide information that helps local governments, nonprofit organizations and small businesses manage risk effectively. By making risk management knowledge and practical information available online, we hope to protect your organization. Our intent is to support anyone whose job involves protecting the people, property, assets, reputation, financial health, and services of his or her organization."

The Public Risk Management Association (PRIMA), the Public Entity Risk Institute (PERI), and the Nonprofit Risk Center (NRMC) work together on this endeavor.

Your community or nonprofit organization may benefit from the knowledge on these web resources.

Don't be fooled into thinking that national security and the spectrum needs of first responders are the only forces swirling about in the dtv transition debates. Scott Fulton of Tom's Hardware News focused on the testimony of Kyle McSlarrow, President and CEO of the National Cable and Telecommunications Association to show where some of the real quicksand lies.

"...the panelists sidestepped the national security issue entirely, and instead focused on the principal roadblock facing their industry today: the implications of extending the so-called "must-carry" provision into the digital era--whenever that begins. Established in 1992, the provision mandates that every cable TV (CATV) provider must carry the signal of each of the over-the-air broadcasters that designates itself as "must-carry," within the provider's service area. As the digital TV era begins, the amount of bandwidth consumed by each broadcast signal should increase. But on top of that expansion, broadcasters are increasing the capacity of their signal by adding multicast channels--extra content transmitted in parallel. If the must-carry provision still holds after the DTV changeover date, CATV and satellite providers may not be able to afford the extra bandwidth, as Kyle McSlarrow, President and CEO of the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, argued before the panel.

One solution, argued McSlarrow, is to enable cable operators to downconvert some digital broadcasters' DTV signals to analog resolution, and to let those operators foot the bill. Downconversion might be necessary anyway to enable existing TV sets to display programming after the conversion date. "But instead of embracing this solution," McSlarrow testified, "the broadcasters continue to ask you [Congress] for special favors," in the form of special allowances and perhaps even subsidies to fund the transition.

"The most plausible interpretation," McSlarrow continued, "is that the broadcasters hope to goad the cable industry into joining them in their passiveaggressive opposition to a hard [transition] date. Perhaps a more charitable interpretation is that they view this as one more opportunity to make a land grab. In any event, they are making your task harder, not easier..."

The ride to the land of new spectrum is going to be bumpier than most first responders anticipated.

While all the trade press and news outlets covered the main story of the Senate Commerce Committee DTV transition from July 12th , the view from the ground was very interesting. I got to the senate hearing room in the Russell Senate Office Building early but not early enough. Fifty people were sitting and sleeping on the hallway floor and lined up down a stairwell. What I first thought was a group of protesters for converter boxes was actually various professional line sitting company employees; temps who hold the spaces for the powerful lobbyists. I asked the folks in the first spaces who they were holding the spaces for and they said the National Association of Broadcasters.

The suits had all the good seats in the small hearing room.

Senator John McCain was again impressive for his ongoing support for first responders. He vehemently went after the broadcasters for their delays in returning the needed spectrum so that it would be available for first responders. Even their agreeing to a hard transition date did not slow him down in his harsh criticism for their previous delaying actions.

It was as if he expected them to find other ways of delaying the process even though they finally had issued some supportive words for the hard date. I can't blame Senator McCain at all. A December 31, 2008 transition date is three and a half years away and that is a long time and anything can happen including domestic terror attacks as a number of senators pointed out. And in the meantime, first responders will still be without added spectrum.

A few senators did acknowledge that the funds that spectrum auctions could generate may have an effect on advancing the transition date. But don't hold your breathe.

It just seemed to me that if first responders want the spectrum we should have had a large presence at this specific hearing. I know great testimony was offered by the one first responder representative on the panel. I know legislators will be contacted by the appropriate folks. However, a strong presence could not have hurt our efforts. The good press would have underscored our position and maybe just maybe had an impact on moving the date forward.

Senator Debbie Stabenow of Michigan is offering an amendment to the Homeland Security Appropriations bill H.R. 2360 to provide funding for interoperable communications grants. These grants will allow first responders to buy or upgrade the equipment they need and ensure that first responders can talk to each other during emergencies.

This is great news for the first response community. While it won't completely solve the problem of incompatible networks, it is clearly a huge step in the right direction. FRC's report "America's First Responders and the Federal Budget: A Study of Rhetoric Versus Reality" details the dire shortage of funding promised to first responders.

This funding is by no means a done deal but certainly it's a hopeful step towards giving first responders the equipment and resources we need.

Now is a great time to tell your Senator what interoperability funding will mean to you in the first response community!

The Senate reconvenes on Monday July 11 at 1 p.m. The Homeland Security Appropriations bill for 2006, H.R. 2360, is up for consideration at 2 p.m.. The majority calendar says that first degree amendments will be accepted until 4 p.m. on Monday.

Take a good look at the highlights and you may want to give your senator a last minute call to add additional funding to a section that has become, in your opinion, thin over the years.

I guess that I'm an optimist.

It is three years, nine months and twenty-seven day since the 9-11 attacks. People may grow tired of first responders referring to that horrible day, but how else can we underline the fact that first responders need the best resources possible to be ready to not only respond to domestic and foreign terrorist attacks on our soil but also to respond to the everyday occurrences on the streets and in the businesses, industries and homes all across this country.

Police, fire and emergency medical departments along with public safety communications officials have pleaded with every level of government for steady funding levels but funding has declined.

Within eight weeks the fourth anniversary of the 9-11 will occur. As many have said, we will remember and celebrate the lives that were lost that terrible day but we dishonor the victims if we forget that lesson and do not do all we can do to prepare for the future.

Yesterday's events in London are a wakeup call for a slow moving Congress in Washington and a President who has decreased funding for policemen, firefighters and emergency medical personnel.

The 2006 appropriation for the Department of Homeland Security is a litmus test for this Congress. Specific items will tell us even more. For example, the overwhelming problems of first responder communications interoperability has to be faced head on and not be placed on the back burner and be subjected to less and less federal funding.

Furthermore, other Congressional actions will also speak volumes. It will be interesting to see if the Congress will put an extra shoulder to the dtv transition wheel or if next week's Senate hearings are filled with high words but little real action in freeing up the much need radio spectrum for first responder communications.

The U.S. Senate hearing on the digital television transition dates and deadlines that was cancelled in June has been rescheduled for Tuesday, July 12. The full Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation will actually hold a morning and an afternoon hearing at 10 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. respectively.

If you get there early you can sit in on the hearing which will be held in Room 253 of the Russell Senate Office Building.

If you can't make it to the hearing, which is true for 99.9% of us, you can still follow the action on the live webcast on the on the U.S. Senate website.

Either way you should pay close attention to the digital television deadline testimony and let your Senators know your viewpoints on this issue so crucial to the spectrum that public safety needs to better respond and serve our areas.