Hawaii County Fire Talkgroups

Recently there was a major update to the Hawaii County trunked system talkgroups.

In the new listing of Fire Talkgroups I believe only 6 of the 19 submitted are correct:

6501, 6502, 6503, 6504, 6506, & 6512 are correct.

6500 should be Emergency All-Call
6505 is Countywide Dispatch

I have confirmed the above listening on the air and hearing the talkgroup name being used.

I suspect 6507 is Kau 1 but I have not confirmed that.

Any input from around the Island?

They recently did an upgrade on radios on HFD and HPD and they add a few more talk groups to the trunked system. Did a scan for these TGID on Pro96com and they definitely been using a lot of the new groups lately especially in Kona and Ka'u districts for the Fire Command and Rescue Operations Command usage. (From where I live in Kona, I pick up 4-5 towers with my antenna being on the roof)

6500 is what dispatch use to send tone outs to stations (saw it come up quite a few times, it will show other channels but seen this with the patch coming from 6500) (It also jumps when they patch 2 TGID together)
6505 is currently HI FD Ka'u 1 (Confirmed that from communications to units to switch back to their main channel for ops and being used a lot in Ka'u.) (Do not know if they'll change to it 6507 after it's all said and done)
6507 heard them patched islandwide command during a couple of brushfires

Then every district has secondary command channel:
6510, 6511, 6512, 6513, 6514, 6515

Other command channels used:
6516 (used a few times during multiple large incidents), 6517, 6518 (Hear Rescue operations use a bit too for communications between each other and Fire Ground also used as well during brush fires. One for East and West)

Do not believe any MEDICOM channels were added and still were Phase 1 with the state with repeaters at the hospitals. I believe they'll probably add some when they go to Phase 2.

Also, 2 of 16 sites need to be constructed and FCC granted an extension till 7/2018.

So I don't know if they would be changing things around again when those towers are all said and done. Then sending an upgrade to the radios after, we will see where this goes.

As I type this @ 2;41pm Friday they are dispatching on 6505 right now and always have been.

About MedCom

They are still using 453.4000 analog not Phase 1 P25. The repeaters are not at hospitals but on various mountaintops, see FCC license WQN730.

If you look at a Medic unit you will see 3 antennas, 1 18" vhf for county trunked system, 1 6" uhf for MedCom system, and another 18" vhf for medcom mobile repeater (extender) on 155.0550 .

northzone said:

As I type this @ 2;41pm Friday they are dispatching on 6505 right now and always have been.

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Agreed.

Although, sometimes I do see 6505 patched with another TG. When monitoring pro96com, I will see both 6505 and 6502 (on Honokaa site for example) come up during a dispatch call.

I saw that massive update from 10/25 in the database, but I've been too busy to pay much attention. Now that I look at it, I question some of it as well.

Unfortunately, I am limited to the one site here in Honokaa that I can pick up so I can't validate much of it. But I think most of the original information that was previously in the database was correct.

scan18 said:

Agreed.

Although, sometimes I do see 6505 patched with another TG. When monitoring pro96com, I will see both 6505 and 6502 (on Honokaa site for example) come up during a dispatch call.

Click to expand...

I think the reason you see the patching is when say the Honokaa engine is out on a call. The engine will be on channel Honokaa-1 (6502), the response & command channel for that area. If another dispatch comes in it will be broadcast on both channels so the engine does not miss the traffic. I have watched this happen many times.

Also, I have noticed when the battalion chief is out you many hear many talkgroups you normally don't hear as he might be listening to dispatch and every response channel in his battalion area. I watched this happen one day as a chief rolled code from his Waikoloa office to a fire in the Kau district. I could follow the enhanced traffic as he moved from site to site, the multiple group traffic would follow. Fun stuff.

Here are the talkgroups I can confirm from listening to the system here in Kona (correct me if any are wrong):

- 6503 HFD Kohala - 1 (Correct)
- 6504 HFD Kona - 1 (Correct)
- 6505* I have seen/heard dispatch always patching out on this TGID. Also did see Ka'u units running off this TGID and also say they are on Ka'u - 1 (hear it on an occasion)
- 6507 Lately been hearing PTA units patched on with HFD units in West Hawaii on this TGID (Has anyone else noticed the same as well) Maybe should be renamed a Joint Command Tactical channel.
- 6508 & 6509 HFD Patch TGID for Chopper operations (Both helicopters, I think one is for Chopper -1 and other for Chopper 2 or could be for one for West and another for East)
- 6512 HFD Kohala - 2 (Correct)
- 6513 HFD Kona - 2 (Correct, heard Kona units use it outside of normal operations for unit to unit communications during training and also a few rescue incidents in Kona)
- 6514 HFD Ka'u - 2 (Correct, heard Ka'u units use it outside of normal operations for unit to unit communications during training and also during recent rescue incident)

*Note: For Dispatch, I would say they can be pretty much done on any TGID for HFD and it will always vary depending on what happening around the island.

I know a few people in with HFD and HPD I can ask to help with figuring out how big this system really is, will let you know what I get.

Any thoughts or input?

Thanks for those details. Yeah, sometimes I am not seeing any real rhyme or reason to the TG's used for some incidents. For example, yesterday there was an incident on Rt.19 in North Hilo district and for a while they were patching everyone in on TG 6515 (HIFD Puna 2). That is the first time I've seen that TG pop up on the Honoka'a site.