On Tuesday, September 20, APCO International, the world’s largest association of public safety communications professionals, filed formal comments with the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) advocating that Public Safety Telecommunicators – the professionals who answer 9-1-1 calls, dispatch emergency responders and perform many related tasks – be recognized for the critical work they do to protect and save the lives of the general public and first responders. Specifically, APCO challenged OMB’s failure to reclassify Public Safety Telecommunicators as Protective Service Occupations in the Standard Occupational Classification (SOC). Read more.

If you plan to apply for the Winter 2017 session of APCO’s Certified Public-Safety Executive (CPE) Program, now is the time to begin your application, which is due October 16. Gathering the necessary items and completing the application process can be time-consuming, so don’t wait until the last minute to apply. Only 20 seats are available for this session. See what current CPE students have to say before you apply.

Bill Vincent has served as APCO’s Primary Frequency Advisor for Louisiana since 1987. In March of 2015, Bill retired from his career in public safety, having served 13 years in law enforcement, which included holding the position of Chief Deputy Sheriff of Lafayette Parish, followed by 33 years as Director of the Lafayette Louisiana 9-1-1 system.

Temple University Police Department, PA, has met the minimum training standards for APCO International's Agency Training Program Certification and has been awarded certification as of September 13, 2016.

9-1-1 Magazine The #IAM911 movement was started at the end of last August by Ricardo Martinez II, a 9-1-1 dispatcher in Michigan, as an effort on Facebook to assist in the reclassification of public safety telecommunicators from "clerical," where US Government’s Office of Management and Budget’s Standard Occupational Classification Policy Committee recently ruled they belong, to "protective," by showing how the intense, specialized training dispatchers/telecommunicators receive and the intensive, life-saving work that they routinely do in their jobs is far, far from the average job description of the clerical classification.

WAMC To millions of people in New York on Monday morning, the first word of a suspect in the New York and New Jersey bombings arrived at 8 a.m. with a jarring, screeching sound of their mobile phones.

The Hill On any given day, a 9-1-1 dispatcher might direct police as a crime is in progress, provide lifesaving first aid or speak to a caller on the brink of suicide.

PoliceOne Phonetic alphabets are meant for radio users to be able to pronounce and understand strings of letters and numbers regardless of signal quality. The police alphabet, unique to American officers, is even more succinct than the military code and useful for communicating information like names and license plates clearly over radio.

ARRL The national emergency exercise is aimed at testing the skills and preparedness of Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) and other organizations that are called into action in actual emergency situations.

On June 30, 2016, the FCC and Canada's Innovation Science and Economic Development (ISED) jointly released documents that enhance cross-border communications. The FCC Public Notice provides guidance to U.S. public safety licensees seeking to: (1) roam into Canada; (2) communicate from the U.S. through base station repeaters in Canada; or (3) host Canadian licensees seeking to communicate through base station repeaters in the U.S.