Paramedic to Hospital Base frequencies

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pepsima1

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I have never heard any of the base hospitals talking to paramedics or vise-versa. I am pretty sure they use cell phones to talk to hospitals.
 

LAflyer

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The frequencies are definitely used. On the Westside I have heard UCLA, Cedar Sinai amongst other hospitals speak to paramedics.
Just remember none of these are on a repeater, so you will need to be relatively close to monitor.
(p.s. Judas- I've only heard city/county paramedics, not private ambulance companies).
 

jrholm

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All paramedics service in LA County are from fire depts. The ambulance companies are only EMT. So any comms with hospitals will be from fire. The only exceptions would be Mercy Air who has flight nurses and LASD'S Air-5 which has paramedics deputies on board. On some busy weekends they have a trauma surgeon on board who also happens to be a reserve deputy.

In the past 5 years I'be never seen LACOFD Paramedics use a radio, its always been by phone.
 

clanusb

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All paramedics service in LA County are from fire depts. The ambulance companies are only EMT.

incorrect.
All LA County EMS 911 calls are handled by the fire departments.

private ambulance companies have emt's, paramedics, and critical care nurses. they just do not respond to 911 calls. they are mainly used for inter-facility transfers.
 

judas12

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The frequencies are definitely used. On the Westside I have heard UCLA, Cedar Sinai amongst other hospitals speak to paramedics.
Just remember none of these are on a repeater, so you will need to be relatively close to monitor.
(p.s. Judas- I've only heard city/county paramedics, not private ambulance companies).

ok thankyou
 

bryan_herbert

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In LA County, the MED channels are primarily backup having been replaced by cellphone. LA County Fire paramedics have the MED channels programmed in their HTs so after the next moderate quake when the cell towers are shut off to prevent overload check out the MED channels, you should see some activity. You should also have HEAR 155.340 programmed into your radio. LA County air squads use it to contact hospitals when transporting patients.
 

code3cowboy

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incorrect.
private ambulance companies have emt's, paramedics, and critical care nurses. they just do not respond to 911 calls. they are mainly used for inter-facility transfers.

Wrong, several private ambulance companies have 911 contracts in LA county.
 

JoeyC

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Gotta love this forum, so many people giving contradictory information you don't know who to believe. :lol::lol:
 

jrholm

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Actually Clan is correct. I find't include them because those patients are usually stable for transport and the receiving hospital already knows they are coming, therefore no comms and very little interest to us.
You are also correct that several private companies have 911 contracts but that is in addition to paramedics from fire. The ambulances are manned by EMTs. If its an ASL transport a paramedics from fire rides with them.
 

fender1878

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The ambulances are manned by EMTs. If its an ASL transport a paramedics from fire rides with them.

Everybody speaks so affirmatively on here. The fact is that this is not always the case. There are PLENTY of private ALS providers in LA County who make base contact on a regular bases.

A few everyday examples:

1) Private company sends an ALS ambulance to convalescent home transport and discovers that the patient is in need of acute care and not a simple transport. The ALS provider then initiates paramedic care and makes base...

2) If it is the closer unit, a private ambulance provider, contracted with LACoFD (Care, Westmed/MC, Schaefer, AMR), can send an ALS ambulance in place of a BLS ambulance. In many situations, especially in busy areas, the squad will hand the patient off to the ALS ambulance and go available. This happens all the time.

3) ALS unit still alarms a call.

4) ALS unit is on a standby at an event and has an incident.

5) Many fire departments have mutual aid contracts with private ambulance ALS providers (West Covina and Beverly Hills come to mind), where the private ALS ambulance will be the sole ALS resource on scene.

6) MCI's, where many providers are called upon. Although most of these would go through the MAC (before somebody jumps on me for this point).

The real reason for not hearing much traffic on the radio is due to cell phones. 90% of your base runs are done via cell phone these days. The LA County EMS policies state that although cell phones are useful, they are to be used to "augment" the use of radios and not to replace them. Therefore, every ALS unit must carry a radio for base contact. The EMS policy also states that the radio must be transportable to the patients side, so usually the base radio is an HT.

It is also hard to monitor the base radio because as you've probably noticed, the TX and RX are different. Typically, everybody hails the hospital on 9-Alpha. Each base hospital monitors 9-A and has a unique DTMF identifier that the unit will transmit over the channel. Once the hospital acknowledges the call, they will instruct the unit to go to a different channel for the dissertation.

The number/letter combo is denoting the PL, since the base hospital frequencies are set up as MPL. In the radio, each PL is assigned a letter (A, B, C, D, E, etc). So if the hospital tells the unit to go to 4-Bravo, all this means is switch to channel four, and select PL "Bravo."
 

inigo88

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I just reorganized the LA County MED plan so that it would appear in alpha-numerical order last night and was wondering why we didn't have more information on it. I've labeled 9-A as "All Hospital Hailing."

Let us know if more descriptions are possible.
 

fender1878

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I just reorganized the LA County MED plan so that it would appear in alpha-numerical order last night and was wondering why we didn't have more information on it. I've labeled 9-A as "All Hospital Hailing."

Let us know if more descriptions are possible.

I think the reason for this is because it's fairly easy to screw with the system if you have the right information. All you need are the DTMF codes and PL's and you can basically dial up any ER in the LA County.

What I can tell you is that there are 6 PL's, (A, B, C, D, E, F) and each triggers a specific repeater site. Which is why you can typically hear hospitals using the same combinations. However, each PL can be latched to any of the -- technically -- 10 channels. There is a MED 10-A in the county TICP, but the frequencies and PL are identical to 9-A.

In terms of how the County labels them in the TICP, they are simply:

MED 1 -- "USE MPL FOR TONES A-F"
MED 2 -- "USE MPL FOR TONES A-F"
MED 3 -- "USE MPL FOR TONES A-F"
MED 4 -- "USE MPL FOR TONES A-F"
MED 5 -- "USE MPL FOR TONES A-F"
MED 6 -- "USE MPL FOR TONES A-F"
MED 7 -- "USE MPL FOR TONES A-F"
MED 8 -- "USE MPL FOR TONES A-F"
MED 9-A -- "HOSPITAL HAILING CHANNEL"
MED 10-A -- "HOSPITAL HAILING CHANNEL"

I would imagine that on a scanner, the PL is indifferent because listening in CSQ would still allow you to hear everything.
 

inigo88

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I'm sorry I wasn't more clear. By policy we do not include input tones in the database. DTMF paging codes for each individual hospital would definitely be out of the question.

My interest is limited to the description field in the database. It would be helpful if there's some set pattern to which output tone corresponds to which repeater location, and/or which hospitals would use which MED channel. I am guessing that since they are hailed on 9A/10A and assigned an available channel, the tone (repeater location) is fixed and the channel number (frequency) is assigned based on availability? I am also curious what the actual difference is between 9A and 10A if they share the same frequency and output tone (different input tones?).

I was just curious if any of the above could be shared so that channel usage could be more accurately described, without compromising any details that would make the system easier to screw with. ;)

Thanks again.
 

inigo88

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Just did a cursory check of the FCC licenses for MED-9, and found KQV935.

Some possible candidate mountain top repeater locations for tones (A-F):

Oat Mountain (Santa Clarita)
Bald Mountain (North County)
Hauser Peak (Palmdale)
Verdugo Peak (Burbank)
Castro Peak (Thousand Oaks)
Mt Disappointment (Altadena)
Johnstone Peak (Glendora)
Topanga Ridge

Plus Palos Verdes, Avalon, etc etc.
 
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