Dispatch info on Phoenix Fire dispatch

Could someone tell me what sounds like the end of a dispatch, engine 605 Ladder 26, k Dak 8 or K Dak 9?
Is it the dispatchers call sign?

Looking at the RR system page it looks like the talk group the units switch to when they go en route.

The computer dispatch voice is hard to understand at times, especially if you're not used to it. What they're saying is the response channel or talk group. In this case it's K deck 8 (or 9) indicating the trunked digital talk group channel K-8. They use A 8 (or 9) for the older Analog channel. As a general rule the digital K talk groups are used for medical calls and the Analog channels are used for fire calls.

Where did the "deck" come from? Always wondered why they refer to their channels as decks.

JoeyC said:

Where did the "deck" come from? Always wondered why they refer to their channels as decks.

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There's probably more to the story that I don't know, but essentially digital trunked radios have 2 'channel' knobs, typically (but not always) one knob marked A-P, and one marked 1-16 so you have a total possibility of 256 'channels' - A-1 through P-16.

Somewhere they started using the term deck for the letter designations - ie: K deck, channel 16.

I guess I'll either have to dig a little deeper to find out how the term came into use, or maybe someone else on here can explain better.

gary9F1 said:

Could someone tell me what sounds like the end of a dispatch, engine 605 Ladder 26, k Dak 8 or K Dak 9?
Is it the dispatchers call sign?

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You might want to check out the Fire Department's dispatch web page: https://htms.phoenix.gov/publicweb/Default.aspx

The first column is marked Ch# and shows the response channel to use. When you hear K deck 9 on the radio it will appear as K9 on the web site. As I said earlier, K9 is the digital trunked talk group (often referred to as a channel, although technically it's not, but that's a whole 'nother thread), and A9 is the analog channel (a specific frequency).

I've always wondered where the 'deck' came from, too. I asked about it on some message board or email group when they first started using it, but nobody had an answer.

And just to expand a bit on the "A" channel, usually they'll say "Fire Channel A11" or whatever. Occasionally they'll just say Channel A11.

Phoenix805 said:

There's probably more to the story that I don't know, but essentially digital trunked radios have 2 'channel' knobs, typically (but not always) one knob marked A-P, and one marked 1-16 so you have a total possibility of 256 'channels' - A-1 through P-16.

Somewhere they started using the term deck for the letter designations - ie: K deck, channel 16.

I guess I'll either have to dig a little deeper to find out how the term came into use, or maybe someone else on here can explain better.

Click to expand...

The first use of "deck" that I remember was "Blue Deck" and if I remember correctly, for a long time it was the only "deck". Also, if I remember correctly, whatever equipment I had at the time couldn't "switch to" like the FD could.

As I remember (and my memory isn't as good as it used to be) the radios with the blue deck were somewhat similar to the newer trunked radios in as much as it had a 2 position switch with something like 12 channels on each switch position. With this second switch in the normal position they were on the standard 'deck' with all the Phoenix - Valleywide - shared channels, or they could flip the switch to the 'blue deck' which had Mesa channels, plus Rural Metro, and I believe Chandler (and possibly others). The 'normal' deck was called the white deck, all though you rarely heard that term used.

I don't believe Phoenix coined the term deck, I think the term was already in use and Phoenix adopted the terminology. BTW, I did a little digging and couldn't come up with anything on the origination of the term.

That's Correct

Phoenix805 said:

I don't believe Phoenix coined the term deck, I think the term was already in use and Phoenix adopted the terminology. BTW, I did a little digging and couldn't come up with anything on the origination of the term.

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I'm pretty sure the term originated with the radio manufacturer(s). I was a member of a VFD in Portage County Wisconsin 10 years ago and we had the 16-deck 16-channels per deck portables way back then. But - they were straight analog VHF radios and we didn't use anywhere NEAR all of the decks and channels....

Maybe OT? I had a recent illness that resulted in my right ear becoming about 25% of normal. While sleeping on my left side, my good ear is muffled by the pillow. At those times A Deck and K Deck become indistinguishable for me. Far better for me would be the use something like the single syllable Alpha and King, respectively. In that case, there is no way that even I could confuse the two.

It was my understanding that "Decks" are analogous to Zones. With many radios having 16-channel selector switches if you have more channels you would assign them to different Zones.

Some radios have A-B-C switches that can be programmed as a Zone selector, thus the terms A-Deck, B-Deck etc. Other radios would have the rotary knob as the Zone selector and up-down buttons as the channel selector, affording a greater number of possible channels.

Bank, deck, group, zone. Depending on local terminology, they all mean the same thing.

John
Peoria