Hooligan
Member
In conjunction with Intermountain Health Care's Dixie Regional Medical Center receiving their permanently-assigned Life Flight helicopter -- N251HC -- which replaces the temporarily assigned N109RX, I recently received a quick briefing on their operations.
N251HC is an Agusta 109SP. It's the first of this model to be set-up & fielded as a medevac helo, and has some very cool cockpit navigational aids & resource management system displays. Eventually, Intermountain Life Flight would like to have their entire rotary-wing fleet standardized on this new platform.
Life Flight - Intermountain Healthcare - Salt Lake City, Utah
As you already probably know, Life Flight uses the UCAN system as their primary communications system, and they really, really like UCAN a lot in terms of coverage. They're well-aware of the large holes in ground coverage in the central & SE parts of the state, but those gaps are actually pretty small, if the helo is flying at-altitude. For example, they can continue to hit UCAN (probably the Utah Hill site) until they're on final approach at Las Vegas Medical Center.
They do know that their normal UCAN channels are encrypted, and were surprised to learn how many law enforcement special operations type channels are not encrypted at all. It doesn't seem like HIPAA concerns caused them to spend the extra $$ on encryption, and programming all their radios to use it 100% on their Ops channels, but the pilot I spoke with didn't know exactly why their comms person did push for encryption.
The Ops radio comm systems they have are a Technisonic (the old Wulfsberg) TDFM-7000/NV, meaning the radio is FM/P-25 capable, and display/controls are compatible with night vision goggles, which the flight crew are qualified for & use when necessary, with a RC-7000 remote control head at the Flight Nurse station. It's capable of multi-channel simulcast use, so for example the co-pilot could be using it to talk to ground crews setting-up an LZ on the 154.280MHz "State Fire" channel while the Flight Nurse could be talking to an area hospital on an 800MHz UCAN talk group.
http://www.dallasavionics.com/technisonic/tdfm7000_brochure.pdf
Also, in-between the cockpit area & patient compartment is a Motorola APX-7000 multiband handheld radio, usually sitting on the UCAN Life Flight Ops Talk group ("LF OPS" per the radio's LCD display on top).
http://www.motorola.com/web/Busines...ent/Static File/APX7000_Portable_Brochure.pdf (they don't have the types with the big, fancy multicolor LCD front display)
Additionally, they have a SATCOM system used for automatic flight-tracking, push-to-talk, brief text messaging and telephone interface when necessary. It's the 'Sky Connect' system, which uses the Iridium satellite network (1.6GHz) & TRACKER software/hardware interface.
Track Your Flights
Thanks to UCAN, Sky Connect is mostly used just for the short-burst data mode that automatically sends position updates to the Life Flight Flight Following/Mission Control Center (they simply call it their Communications Center) at Salt Lake City Airport.
Life Flight - Communication Center - Salt Lake City, Utah
I think that N251HC uses UCAN Radio ID 57451. Usually when I see that ID, it's communicating with RID 65529. I believe N109RX may be UCAN RID 57487. 65529 is probably the Life Flight Comm Center up at KSLC, but it might be a radio at DRMC -- if you guys up North see RID 65529 a lot, it's the LFCC. Obviously it's hard to tell who is who, since the comms are 100% secure, and I don't care enough to do a lot of traffic analysis or ID an airborne user via input signal. All the Life Guard support staff at DRMC carry APX-7000 radios & the radios normally affiliate with the Webb Hill site, which is just a couple miles away from DRMC. Might be a waste for all the staff to have the multi-band, multi-mode 7000s, but in a major emergency, assuming the radios are well-programmed, they can just be told to turn to ___ channel, without the user needing to know about P-25, VHF, UHF, etc.
I have not heard Life Flight talking on any of the Landing Zone talk groups down here yet, but that's not surprising, as it's just UHP, St George PD & Hurricane PD that are up on UCAN so far. Nor have I heard them doing any sort of comm-checks on the local VHF public safety channels.
I forgot to ask what mutual-aid policy they have in terms of assisting LE with looking for suspects, etc. but in that regard, it's probably intentional that these helos don't have Nightsun spotlights, let alone FLIR capability.
Sadly, the helo facility at DRMC is simply a two-spot LZ, completely exposed to the elements. They use window shades & a portable air conditioning blower system to keep the interior cool & electronics from melting in the Summer. Common sense, let alone fiduciary responsibility would seem to me that if you're shelling out big-bucks for an important asset, you should budget $$ to protect the asset, but... Also, there's pretty much no physical security at the LZ -- any villain, Curious-George, or suicidal person could walk right up to the helo at any time. Even transporting a patient from the helo LZ to the DRMC ER would be a couple hundred yard journey through the elements & across a parking lot to get inside the hospital.
But hey, at least we finally have a medevac helo down here now!
The easiest way to hear Life Flight down here in Washington County is to monitor the 122.800MHz St George CTAF frequency.
Eventually I'll go on an orientation flight, which may provide more info on their comms.
I tried including some images of the comm stuff into this post but I keep getting error-messages. I guess the RR software doesn't know how to automatically reduce image size, and I have better things to do with my time than manually do it, so I'll eventually post the images to my Flickr page & you can see them there if interested.
Tim
N251HC is an Agusta 109SP. It's the first of this model to be set-up & fielded as a medevac helo, and has some very cool cockpit navigational aids & resource management system displays. Eventually, Intermountain Life Flight would like to have their entire rotary-wing fleet standardized on this new platform.
Life Flight - Intermountain Healthcare - Salt Lake City, Utah
As you already probably know, Life Flight uses the UCAN system as their primary communications system, and they really, really like UCAN a lot in terms of coverage. They're well-aware of the large holes in ground coverage in the central & SE parts of the state, but those gaps are actually pretty small, if the helo is flying at-altitude. For example, they can continue to hit UCAN (probably the Utah Hill site) until they're on final approach at Las Vegas Medical Center.
They do know that their normal UCAN channels are encrypted, and were surprised to learn how many law enforcement special operations type channels are not encrypted at all. It doesn't seem like HIPAA concerns caused them to spend the extra $$ on encryption, and programming all their radios to use it 100% on their Ops channels, but the pilot I spoke with didn't know exactly why their comms person did push for encryption.
The Ops radio comm systems they have are a Technisonic (the old Wulfsberg) TDFM-7000/NV, meaning the radio is FM/P-25 capable, and display/controls are compatible with night vision goggles, which the flight crew are qualified for & use when necessary, with a RC-7000 remote control head at the Flight Nurse station. It's capable of multi-channel simulcast use, so for example the co-pilot could be using it to talk to ground crews setting-up an LZ on the 154.280MHz "State Fire" channel while the Flight Nurse could be talking to an area hospital on an 800MHz UCAN talk group.
http://www.dallasavionics.com/technisonic/tdfm7000_brochure.pdf
Also, in-between the cockpit area & patient compartment is a Motorola APX-7000 multiband handheld radio, usually sitting on the UCAN Life Flight Ops Talk group ("LF OPS" per the radio's LCD display on top).
http://www.motorola.com/web/Busines...ent/Static File/APX7000_Portable_Brochure.pdf (they don't have the types with the big, fancy multicolor LCD front display)
Additionally, they have a SATCOM system used for automatic flight-tracking, push-to-talk, brief text messaging and telephone interface when necessary. It's the 'Sky Connect' system, which uses the Iridium satellite network (1.6GHz) & TRACKER software/hardware interface.
Track Your Flights
Thanks to UCAN, Sky Connect is mostly used just for the short-burst data mode that automatically sends position updates to the Life Flight Flight Following/Mission Control Center (they simply call it their Communications Center) at Salt Lake City Airport.
Life Flight - Communication Center - Salt Lake City, Utah
I think that N251HC uses UCAN Radio ID 57451. Usually when I see that ID, it's communicating with RID 65529. I believe N109RX may be UCAN RID 57487. 65529 is probably the Life Flight Comm Center up at KSLC, but it might be a radio at DRMC -- if you guys up North see RID 65529 a lot, it's the LFCC. Obviously it's hard to tell who is who, since the comms are 100% secure, and I don't care enough to do a lot of traffic analysis or ID an airborne user via input signal. All the Life Guard support staff at DRMC carry APX-7000 radios & the radios normally affiliate with the Webb Hill site, which is just a couple miles away from DRMC. Might be a waste for all the staff to have the multi-band, multi-mode 7000s, but in a major emergency, assuming the radios are well-programmed, they can just be told to turn to ___ channel, without the user needing to know about P-25, VHF, UHF, etc.
I have not heard Life Flight talking on any of the Landing Zone talk groups down here yet, but that's not surprising, as it's just UHP, St George PD & Hurricane PD that are up on UCAN so far. Nor have I heard them doing any sort of comm-checks on the local VHF public safety channels.
I forgot to ask what mutual-aid policy they have in terms of assisting LE with looking for suspects, etc. but in that regard, it's probably intentional that these helos don't have Nightsun spotlights, let alone FLIR capability.
Sadly, the helo facility at DRMC is simply a two-spot LZ, completely exposed to the elements. They use window shades & a portable air conditioning blower system to keep the interior cool & electronics from melting in the Summer. Common sense, let alone fiduciary responsibility would seem to me that if you're shelling out big-bucks for an important asset, you should budget $$ to protect the asset, but... Also, there's pretty much no physical security at the LZ -- any villain, Curious-George, or suicidal person could walk right up to the helo at any time. Even transporting a patient from the helo LZ to the DRMC ER would be a couple hundred yard journey through the elements & across a parking lot to get inside the hospital.
But hey, at least we finally have a medevac helo down here now!
The easiest way to hear Life Flight down here in Washington County is to monitor the 122.800MHz St George CTAF frequency.
Eventually I'll go on an orientation flight, which may provide more info on their comms.
I tried including some images of the comm stuff into this post but I keep getting error-messages. I guess the RR software doesn't know how to automatically reduce image size, and I have better things to do with my time than manually do it, so I'll eventually post the images to my Flickr page & you can see them there if interested.
Tim
