Los Angeles County Fire MDC ID Databse

[mes90265]

Hey All,

I've recently started a little project mapping out the mdc id's for LA County fire. I don't know if anyone has an interest -- I do know some people however are avid listeners of the county system and it might be helpful or just nice to have mdc decoding working for your alpha display.

Please mention credit to Mark Stevenson but feel free to share. I still have more to go and I will add as I go.

8244 - bay watch Cabrillo
5124- engine 23*
4736- squad 58
8850- EST94
8141- engine 25
9121 - boat 10
4135 - engine 115
4646- engine 20
8056 - squad 50
4645 - engine *22
9368 - engine 50
8817 - engine 27
9402 - batallion 13
5346 - batallion 3
8427 - squad 31
8926 - quint 20
8460 - squad 31
8202 - squad 116
5017 - engine 116
9372 - engine 164
9135 - engine 58
4563 - engine 98
9082 - engine 70
9353 - bay watch*
4752 - squad 30
4331 - engine 7
8080 - engine 173
5399- engine 199
8555- squad 3
8982 - squad 49
8071 - task force*
9241 - squad 191
8041 - engine 18
4736 - quint 147
5389 - engine 125
4736 - squad 58
8725 - engine 95
9456 - battalion 21*
9083 - squad 54
4782 - engine 28
8099 - engine 59
9013 - engine 57
4580 - engine 31
4750 - squad 33
5280 - engine 165
8496 - engine 16
4069 - engine 40
8157 - patrol 55
9022 - area 27
8357- -- 23
8265 - squad 45*
5284 - engine 30
8089- engine 161
5557 - squad 3
4179 - quint 30
9022 - squad 20
5022 - engine 95
8432 - squad 161

[mikegilbert]

Mark, thank you for taking the time to log these IDs. It's a real service to the community.

[spectr17]

What's the asterisk mean?

Area 27?

[bigmattyl]

their mdc's are decodable?

whats needed?

[Markb]

Not quite!

MDC1200 is a signalling protocol. It's the little squawk that you hear at the end of some of their transmissions. It shows the dispatcher what unit is transmitting, allows for use of the emergency button and stuff like that.

[wb6pwj]

While on the subject of fire MDC ID's.

Long Beach Fire on newer radios uses the format A000-A499 are portable units, A500 and up are mobiles.

We do not repeat the MDC. The cad program translates the radio code to an actual unit. Unless the ID is not aliased, the dispatcher never sees the actual MDC code,

If you want to decode fire or PD you must listen on the input.

[mes90265]

Hey everyone, sorry that it took so long to respond! I had no idea people were posting to this thread!

The way I did this was grueling and I am still working on more. There was no way to decode this through a computer or anything... What I had to do was wait for the unit do identify who they were over the radio and when they did so I would mark the ID's down and label the numerical values with the identifier the person talking used. It's a pain in the butt but I am slowly building a large database that I will post.

[mes90265]

Originally Posted by wb6pwj

While on the subject of fire MDC ID's.

Long Beach Fire on newer radios uses the format A000-A499 are portable units, A500 and up are mobiles.

We do not repeat the MDC. The cad program translates the radio code to an actual unit. Unless the ID is not aliased, the dispatcher never sees the actual MDC code,

If you want to decode fire or PD you must listen on the input.

This is not the case for LA County Fire but thank you for the words of advice about LBFD/PD.

[jmorrissey23]

There is actually a free windows MDC decoder I found here antistatic.org - winmdcd in case anyone wanted to try it. It can run through the headphone jack of any scanner into the microphone jack of a PC.