Again is it necessary to rename every year or 2. Our agency hadn't changed it's radio programming in over 10 years before narrow banding hit. Now we are expected to reprogram over 6000 radios yearly because some quasi government agency wants to rename channels bi-yearly or sooner? Even that's not a given, some states have renamed the interops to their own names, so where is the consistency. Now take this problem and apply it to a large area trunking system and that's a disaster in itself. When you are responding to a call whether it is a local or mutual aid one you don't have the time to fool around looking in bank 32 for the interops especially if they are named differently than where the dispatcher tells you to go to. My temporary solution is to name the channel the actual frequency so no matter what agency calls for it's use and what ever it's name is we know we are on the right channel.
For this only I think the FCC should come out with the naming convention just like Marine channels.When you select channel 16 it's 16 in all radios.
From the report:
In the final report of the NCC on July 25, 2003, Chair Kathleen Wallman wrote:
“The NCC respectfully renews its earlier recommendation that the Commission’s Rules contain
mandatory channel nomenclature for all interoperability channels on all public safety bands.
The NCC views such standard nomenclature as essential to the interoperability process, such
that all responders to an incident will know the appropriate channel to which to tune their radios
and will know – from the channel designator – the band and primary use of the channel
specified. Absent such standard nomenclature, a Babel-like confusion could result if, for
example, a given jurisdiction were to designate 458.2125 MHz as a calling channel and
associate it with “Channel 5” on its radios; and another jurisdiction were to designate the same
frequency as a tactical channel and assign it to “Channel 9” on its radios. With adoption of a
standard channel nomenclature in the Rules, such confusion – and the attendant potential for
delayed response to an incident – would be avoided…”
Peer review is one thing, but you are talking about 2 dozen channels available nationwide, and they should all be named the same as the problems brought out during Katrina, and I am sure other disasters. We have yet to hear about Houston or PR. I also agree that if you put more than one goverment official in charge of something it takes 20 years for a solution. The 911 commission proved that it takes Fed mandates to get a job done.
Training is another issue, that must be addressed on the fed/state level for consistency. People that work in these fields daily need to know what to do when the SH-T flies. They know their jobs,now they just nee to know what channel to be on.
I am going to go out on a limb here, but I think COM U training should be incorporated with EMT/Paramedic, Fire Fighter and Police academy training for consistency. Our local FD training touches on it, but not enough for the FF to know exactly what should be done in a MCI.
