I've been away from radio for a long time and technology has changed, so bare with me as I'm playing catch up. I have a BCD996T and am listening to Hendricks County Fire Dispatch but really am only interested in Avon. Is there a way to setup the scanner to hear Avon only? Failing that, many years ago I volunteered as a paramedic and we all carried pagers. Does Avon still use such a paging system and if so will they continue to do so or will it eventually go away? I would be willing to purchase a pager to be able to listen in. I appreciate the help in getting brought up to date on all of the technology. So much has changed I'm sure you will see me post again. Thanks.
Avon FD Info
- Thread starter N3BKO
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N3BKO, Welcome back to Hendricks County. Avon Fire is on the Hendricks County safe-t system. Countywide fire paging is on 154.130. Hendricks County Fire has talkgroups assigned to them for use by all fire departments.There are no longer any talkgroups that are used just for Avon.
Actually, it's the Indiana SAFE-T system as the State of Indiana has funded all of the transmit sites and manages the issuance of talkgroups and radio IDs. The cities and counties that use the system pay for user radios and dispatch facilities.
Michael, as you've discovered, all of Hendricks County is dispatched by a single dispatch center, the Hendricks County Communications Center in Plainfield. All 9-1-1 calls are routed to Hendricks Communications and all police and fire units in the county are dispatched from there. They use a common dispatch talkgroup for all fire departments. Small fire runs automatically transfer to the 32-HCF-FIRE talkgroup and EMS runs transfer to 32-HCF-EMS. Larger runs will be assigned an OPS talkgroup. Each fire department has different tone-out tones, but that's only useful on initial dispatch. The best you can do is listen for the Avon-Washington Township fire units which will have a unit number with a 14 in it. For example, the engine at the station on US 36 near SR 267 (Station 141) is Engine 141 while the ambulance is Medic 141. The other stations are on Ronald Reagan Pwky north of the Shiloh Crossing shopping area (Station 142) and on CR 525E just south of CR 100S (Station 143).
Avon Fire also sometimes is assigned to mutual aid runs with Wayne Township, Plainfield, Danville, and Brownsburg. Hendricks Communications is somewhat unique in that there's a direct connection between their computer aided dispatch system and the one used by Indianapolis and Marion County. This lets dispatchers on both sides of the county line see what units are available in the other county and assign those units to their runs if needed.
Michael, as you've discovered, all of Hendricks County is dispatched by a single dispatch center, the Hendricks County Communications Center in Plainfield. All 9-1-1 calls are routed to Hendricks Communications and all police and fire units in the county are dispatched from there. They use a common dispatch talkgroup for all fire departments. Small fire runs automatically transfer to the 32-HCF-FIRE talkgroup and EMS runs transfer to 32-HCF-EMS. Larger runs will be assigned an OPS talkgroup. Each fire department has different tone-out tones, but that's only useful on initial dispatch. The best you can do is listen for the Avon-Washington Township fire units which will have a unit number with a 14 in it. For example, the engine at the station on US 36 near SR 267 (Station 141) is Engine 141 while the ambulance is Medic 141. The other stations are on Ronald Reagan Pwky north of the Shiloh Crossing shopping area (Station 142) and on CR 525E just south of CR 100S (Station 143).
Avon Fire also sometimes is assigned to mutual aid runs with Wayne Township, Plainfield, Danville, and Brownsburg. Hendricks Communications is somewhat unique in that there's a direct connection between their computer aided dispatch system and the one used by Indianapolis and Marion County. This lets dispatchers on both sides of the county line see what units are available in the other county and assign those units to their runs if needed.
Robert and Tim, I appreciate you both taking the time to help me out.
My ultimate goal is to know when and why they are responding to my area. The initial dispatch would have all of the information that I would want. If I decide I want more I would go to the scanner and check the appropriate OPS talkgroup. So let me see if I understand correctly. So they still use tone out/paging system like they used to but it is now transmitted over the trunked system? Washington Township will have a tone and then a second tone will identify one of the three stations in Avon?
Robert, you have done an excellent job explaining this, I just may be making this more difficult than it really is by trying to relate to the way things were twenty plus years ago.
My ultimate goal is to know when and why they are responding to my area. The initial dispatch would have all of the information that I would want. If I decide I want more I would go to the scanner and check the appropriate OPS talkgroup. So let me see if I understand correctly. So they still use tone out/paging system like they used to but it is now transmitted over the trunked system? Washington Township will have a tone and then a second tone will identify one of the three stations in Avon?
Robert, you have done an excellent job explaining this, I just may be making this more difficult than it really is by trying to relate to the way things were twenty plus years ago.
Yes, as Tim mentioned, the initial dispatch still goes out over 154.130 MHz and that transmitter is in Danville. I've never taken the time to work out all of the tones being used, but there is, at a minimum, a specific tone for each station. There may also be a specific tone for each apparatus.
If you look at the talkgroup listing for Hendricks County, you'll see one listed as FHAS. That's Fire House Alerting System and it uses MOSCAD which is a Motorola computer aided dispatching system. Nearly simultaneously with the dispatch going out over 154.130 and 32-HCF-DISP, a series of digital codes go out over 32-FHAS-MOSC talkgroup. This is how the stations in the eastern part of the county are alerted. The stations in the western part of the county, which are mostly volunteer departments, still use VHF audio tone alert systems.
So, you have audio tones and voice on 154.130, voice on 32-HCF-DISP, and digital signals over 32-FHAS-MOSC.
If you do come up with any of the tones, please add them to the Hendricks County article in the RR Wiki.
http://wiki.radioreference.com/index.php/Hendricks_County_(IN)
If you look at the talkgroup listing for Hendricks County, you'll see one listed as FHAS. That's Fire House Alerting System and it uses MOSCAD which is a Motorola computer aided dispatching system. Nearly simultaneously with the dispatch going out over 154.130 and 32-HCF-DISP, a series of digital codes go out over 32-FHAS-MOSC talkgroup. This is how the stations in the eastern part of the county are alerted. The stations in the western part of the county, which are mostly volunteer departments, still use VHF audio tone alert systems.
So, you have audio tones and voice on 154.130, voice on 32-HCF-DISP, and digital signals over 32-FHAS-MOSC.
If you do come up with any of the tones, please add them to the Hendricks County article in the RR Wiki.
http://wiki.radioreference.com/index.php/Hendricks_County_(IN)
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Robert, again thank you for your assistance. So much has changed and I have a lot of catching up to do. I hope to attend the next meeting of HCARS and become active in some way to give back to the community.
Thank you for the link you provided also. I don't know how I missed that one as it provides a lot of info about the county.
Thank you for the link you provided also. I don't know how I missed that one as it provides a lot of info about the county.
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