The use of radio communication is now part of most venues licences and rightly so, I've worked venues with none and relying purely on being noticed when a fight kicks off in a busy, darkened bar isn't a nice feeling! I've been in venues when the radios were so bad we used to walk around with our thumb over the speaker to feel the vibration of someone transmitting because the earpiece socket didn't work. Earpieces themselves have improved greatly although still pick up a great deal of background noise making it difficult to understand transmissions on occasions. A way around this is to buy a throat mike as they're known which pick up the vibrations from your voice box through your throat, unfortunately unless you have a high quality or rather an expensive one they do tend to make you sound like a robot and are just as difficult to understand!
In one venue I worked in Scarborough we had a panic button built in to the radio so if we heard a loud beep we checked each doormans static location and if they weren't there, that's where we charged to! Crude but effective and better than our previous method of using hand signals!
Some venues CCTV was diabolical with grainy black and white images and in some cases delayed recording, this meant that the camera would take a picture every half a second or so which, when played back would flicker as you viewed it. This system actually saved a doorman I was working with from potentially getting charged one night as he was on the front door of a bar and was getting a lot of aggravation from a young man who wanted to come in, after what seemed like an age the doorman lost his cool and when the young man was in range let fly a quick right straight which sent the lad flying backwards. Out of order of course and when we looked at the CCTV, because of the delay and the speed of the punch all you can see is the lad in the doormans face and then he's not there anymore! Lucky escape for him and probably a contributing factor into why they had to be improved!
Local authority operated CCTV is vital in assisting the police and doorstaff track offenders and just people who shouldn't be let in anymore, we regularly use the system to inform other venues about people who have caused us problems to help keep the real idiots out of everywhere they can cause trouble or hurt people.
Of course the system is only as good as the operators who monitor it and for the most part do a fantastic job but sadly some of them must think they're watching a tv show instead of real life as they don't seem to understand that when we ask them to monitor our door and ask for police assistance and then stop transmitting, it means we can't! I've sat there myself and listened to the operator try to raise the door in question and then start slagging them off for not giving him more information! Sometimes you just bloody can't and if whoever you're dealing with see's you on a radio can attack you without warning because I've been there too. I understand they they have rules and directives they have to follow but common sense must surely take precedence sometimes in the interest of everyone's safety! I should mention at this point that there are some fantastic CCTV operators out there and I knew one in particular who used to stay an extra hour after his shift finished, just so he could give us help if we needed it at a particularly troublesome venue, top notch there. I do remember on one occasion I had an idiot on my front door and the doorman I was with was doing a check inside, I had to put the lad down and before I could reach for my radio I heard the street radio as we call it crackle to life "not sure if you can hear me but I was monitoring that idiot I've got a police unit on the way to you now!" Cheers buddy and a quick thumbs up to the camera.
When using a radio you should always check your transmission and receiving capabilities, this is the same for the street radios and when I'm feeling particularly jovial I do like to sign off with a
"Spank you very much control, this is ...... Signing off, good night!"
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