Fire scanning

[AtomicTaco]

Does anyone else do any fire scanning? I like listening to the fire dispatches; it's always interesting hearing what they're going for. Also the HEARS frequency is a good one to have programmed in. I just had a couple of questions:

1) I have the "Valcom Fire" frequencies programmed in. I often hear the dispatchters and fire fighters referring to these frequencies as "Fire 1" or "Fire 2" etc. Are these frequencies shared with all FDs dispatched by Valcom? If so, how does one department know which channel to use?

2) Seattle Fire has TGs for their TAC channels and type-specific (Medic, dispatch, etc). Do other departments use the TRS or do they use VHF/UHF for their unit-to-unit and on-scene operations? I have "On-Scene Command and Coordination" (156.135) programmed in but I've never heard anything on it. Same with "State Fire Net" (153.83). I was stopped at a light once where South King Fire was on scene with a Car VS Pole (funny how pole always wins) and I used Signal Stalker as I saw someone talking into their speakermic. I believe it came up with 821 MHz or something like that (I know it was in the 800 band). I only caught the end of what he said; sounds like he was talking to dispatch so they could send AMR out.

3) Does anyone have any PL tones for 154.07? It seems to be the standard for fire dispatch; nationwide? I was in Tigard, OR on Wednesday and just for the heck of it turned my scanner on and heard some fire dispatches on that channel too.

4) Is there a site that can tell me more about the dispatch process? I know the basics; and just read this thread but this afternoon I heard the SFD dispatch channel advising "refer to printout for address" or "refer to printout for (response type or something to that extent)". Do they get a printout at the station? Or do they use MDTs? Or both? Also, why did the system not announce the address/response type?

5) Anything else you can share about fire/medic and their radios would be great!

 

[Stavro35]

1. When you're listening and they refer to something as "Fire 1" or "Fire 2" . They're not referring to a frequency,they're referring to a specific talkgroup they're currently using,or wish to use.Valleycomm has dispatch talkgroups and various other talkgroups which they use. How do they know which to use? Their radio's are set up to allow them to switch to certain channels. Dispatch,tac, etc.


2. The Seattle King county TRS is for pretty much all the agencies in the King county area. Simply refer to the RR data base to find out which agencies use the TRS. I've never heard anything on 156.135 either. But I've got a lot of frequencies programmed in, just in case. State fire net seems to be rarely used,again I have it just in case.

3. 154.070 isn't necessarily used nationwide. As for p.l tones. I just set my Pro97 up to search for p.l tones. If I can figure out who's who,I make a note of it. All too often on the Kitsap county fire tone outs several p.l tones pop up, and I have no way to know who's who.

4. If you're question is exclusive to Seattle fire, I would assume when the dispatcher says refer to print out for address,or incident type. It's because they've been asked not to broadcast that information out over the air,again just a guess. But you can see real time dispatches at
http://www2.cityofseattle.net/fire/realTime911/getRecsForDatePub.asp?action=Today&incDate=&rad1=des

You might hear an "Aid response on channel 5,refer to print out for address,refer to print out for incident type" . By going to that web site you'll know what's going on when you hear that kind of dispatch.

5. You might want to monitor airlift northwest, and all the med channels. like 463.0 etc. But just the base channels are needed to monitor ambulance to hospital communications .

I am located in Bainbridge island Washington,in the heart of Winslow. If you need any more information,more questions etc, no problem . .I seem to be THE scanner expert on the island. I've yet to run into anyone that even has a portable scanner with them all the time, like me.

 

[RWF]

I hate listening to Seattle fire.That computer generated voice drives me crazy.I was talking to a firefighter and he said they are not fond of it either.He said they have a name for her-something like Lacucia,which is the name of the program that dispatches them.He said they can set the program to speed her up,slow her down,etc.no male voice though.

 

[AuntBee09]

I hate listening to Seattle fire.That computer generated voice drives me crazy.I was talking to a firefighter and he said they are not fond of it either.He said they have a name for her-something like Lacucia,which is the name of the program that dispatches them.He said they can set the program to speed her up,slow her down,etc.no male voice though.

i asked a bellevue dispatcher (for both PD and FD) what she thought of the seattle FD computer voice, she said dispatchers don't like it because they take away their jobs lol

 

[AtomicTaco]

Regarding the voice, I actually kinda like it. I don't know what they call her, but she's one of the best female text to speech voices that I've heard; it's kinda cool how far TTS has come. RememberDonna from NOAA? Try listening to her say "cloudy."

1. When you're listening and they refer to something as "Fire 1" or "Fire 2" . They're not referring to a frequency,they're referring to a specific talkgroup they're currently using,or wish to use.Valleycomm has dispatch talkgroups and various other talkgroups which they use.

Typo on my part; I meant talkgroups not frequencies. Does the dispatch that they get at the station tell them that they'll be using Fire1, Fire2, etc?

2) I've gone through the database here and on Intercept Northwest and haven't found any really specific talkgroups; and any that I haven't ever heard anything on them. I saw a few South King Fire talkgroups (the agency I'm interested in most) but haven't ever heard anything on them.

3) Was wondering if anyone already had a list; I've sorta started, but I'm usually in the car whenever I hear them and don't have the ability to write it down. Not to mention sometimes my Pro-97's code search sometimes alternates between a PL tone around 100 and one above 200 during the same dispatch.

4) Yeah, that's one of the best government websites ever. Especially when paired with this site.

5) I've got Airlift and AMR frequencies; I haven't found anything for Tri-Med. Are there any other amb. companies around here? And I also have all of the hospital TGs programmed in for the King County TRS.

 

[FlashP]

Dispatch

In King County, there are three 'fire zones': FZ-1=Eastside/North, FZ-3=South, FZ-5=City of Seattle. They map to the main dispatch centers for fire: Seattle on their channel 4, Eastside on FZ-1 "Dispatch 1", and KingCo/ValleyCom on "Fire 1".

Only a few agencies still rely on VHF (though most keep it in their rigs). Enumclaw dispatches their own department on VHF with a patch to ValleyCom Fire-11. Stevens and Snoqualmie Passes use 154.190/107.2 from Eastside dispatch, often patched to one of the Fire Tacs.

As noted, 154.07 is not a universal dispatch channel. There are probably a dozen "wideband" VHF frequencies reused across the country that cover 90% of fire activity that's not trunked.

Flash

 

[AtomicTaco]

Thanks all for the info; just one thing I'd still like to know:
I see that Seattle uses 1-A, 2-A, 3-A, 5-A, and 6-A while on a call. What channels do other departments use?