Common fireground channels on DPS, non-roaming TGs?

[plaws]

It occurs to me that there ought to be a half dozen or so fireground channels set aside in the DPS system. Make certain that every fire department has them in all radios.

Example: Norman has a good fire going and gets Mutual Aid from Moore. Rather than having to make sure that Moore has Norman's channel, they would just have to know to go to (say) "Fireground Red". Likewise for any FD coming in from anywhere on the DPS system.​

Now, with a statewide SmartZone, a half-dozen wouldn't be enough and you don't need a fireground channel statewide - it defeats the purpose.

So, Motogurus (and not Motoguru wannabes, thanks), to make this workable and conserve bandwidth, is it possible to have a talkgroup NOT roam? Is it possible to tie a channel to a tower or group of towers so that if A particular TG was in use on, say, Site 40, that it would still be usable on, say, Site 7?

 

[Gilligan]

Wouldn't it make more sense to have area or regional mutual aid talkgroups that are dedicated to, maybe particular counties or something? So maybe Cleveland County would have mutual aid fireground channel, as would Oklahoma County, etc. Maybe even divided into east/west or north/south regions of counties. But if you went this route, you wouldn't need to worry about them being re-used in other parts of the state. Besides, wouldn't the RMA & SMA channels serve the purpose you specified?

 

[freqscout]

The RMA's are designed to fill that mutual aid bill. EVERY radio has them.

Yes you can limit a particular TG to one tower or a group of towers.

One example of this is the City of Dayton, OH or Montgomery County (Can't remember which one). They have a list of like 40 Fire channels. There are multiple fire agencies that use this trunked system. They all have ALL of the channels in their radios. They can go to each other's fire tacs and dispatches and talk/listen whenever they need to. It is a goo example of across the board interoperability. There are even links to their state system with the channel numbers I believe. I don't think they are fully integrated or at least they weren't when I looked last.

 

[plaws]

Wouldn't it make more sense to have area or regional mutual aid talkgroups that are dedicated to, maybe particular counties or something? So maybe Cleveland County would have mutual aid fireground channel, as would Oklahoma County, etc.

The problem is that they are statewide. Use that county or regional talkgroup for a fire in Altus and you can't use it for one in Miami.

Granted, it's not an issue now with only 400-odd talkgroups assigned ... but talkgroups are a finite resource and someday this will be an issue.

 

[Gilligan]

When most cities have at least 2-3 fireground channels, one or two interop fireground channels per county would be no extra problem.

 

[car2back]

what about the NPSPAC 800mhz channels? Not only do most all radios have them (or could have them), they're simplex so you won't have problems with a radio in structure fire not being able to affiliate!

 

[Gilligan]

what about the NPSPAC 800mhz channels? Not only do most all radios have them (or could have them), they're simplex so you won't have problems with a radio in structure fire not being able to affiliate!

Good point.