This newly revised version of Alan Burton's seminal guide to the world of public safety dispatching updates the previous (1990) edition to make this an invaluable contemporary guide for the new and hopeful emergency services dispatcher.

There are only a handful of books which give a comprehensive overview of the public safety dispatch profession, and Alan's was the first, way back in 1973, modified into its present form in 1984. Alan, former editor of 9-1-1 Magazine who spent many years as a dispatcher, supervisor, and communications director, brings his encyclopedic knowledge of the dispatching world to play in a well-organized and accessible guidebook which describes operational, technical, legal, and philosphical considerations of being a public safety dispatcher, and the differences therein that pertain to law, fire, and EMS dispatching.

The text covers telephone calltaking, radio procedures, and computer systems in use in Emergency Communications Centers. The technical side of dispatching - and a look at the future - is described in lay terms, explaining briefly what species of machinery exists in communications consoles, what logging recorders are all about, how radio frequencies work, what CTCSS does, what AVL and voice privacy and MDTs and status devices and microwaves do.

There is a chapter on radio procedural considerations for supervisors, but most will find the book makes great supplementary reading for dispatchers in training. While there is no index to speed hurried searches for necessary facts, each chapter contains an exhaustive list of topics covered so pertinent items can be located without difficulty.