Albuquerque ALARM room dispatch protocol changes

[Radio_Cowboy]

I heard the AFD daily announcements last Thursday, and some things have changed.

From 9AM to 5PM, All dispatches will occur on the ALARM talkgroup. All MEDICAL calls will then switch to the EMS-1 talkgroup for any follow up communications and all contact with Albuquerque Ambulance will occur on EMS-1. All Structure fires will be dispatched and then be switched to TAC-5. All other fire calls (brush, dumpster,tree,) will stay on the ALARM talkgroup, or moved to any of the other TAC talkgroups as needed.

All traffic will return and occur as normal on the ALARM talkgroup between 5pm and 9am, and on the weekends.


We'll see how it works.


-RC-

[mcnicoljs]

so what about form 9pm-5am? What will they do than?

[abqscan]

Josh, from 5PM-9-AM all traffic will occur as normal on the Alarm TG.

Sounds like they have some staff that wanted banker hours ;-)

[mcnicoljs]

LOL sounds like it. Thanks for the info.

[zerg901]

If I had to guess - I would guess that all AFD radios would normally be tuned to the ALARM TG. For medical calls, one of the portables on each of the assigned units will switch to EMS-1. For structure fire calls, all of the radios on the assigned units will be switched to Tac5 as they respond to the scene. (Or maybe on a structure fire call, most of the portable radios will switch to Tac 5 when someone reports smoke or fire showing). Something like that.

Its a tradeoff between having too much traffic on 1 channel - versus requiring people to be switching radio channels all day long.

Peter Sz - Arlington MA

[abqscan]

Peter.... Why are you guessing on how their radios worked, when RC posted exactly what they would do when dispatched?

[zerg901]

I am asking specifically about which radios are switched and when. If 5 units respond to a structure fire with 4 people on each unit, then 20 portables and 5 mobile radios have to switch channels.

I am pretty sure that Memphis TN FD uses a 800Mhz Motorola trunking system that switches the channels on the portable radios by remote control.

Peter sz

[abqscan]

Every unit responding to a S/F, will switch to the TAC channel manually, it takes 5 clicks of the knob on the top of the radio to get there. ie. if there are 100 people on a scene of an incident, all 100 radios will go to the assigned TAC channel.