Dispatch?

[Voyager]

What is everyone dispatch called? I'm was just wondering because even in my little county there are tons of names for "Dispatch" for my sheriff it's called "Lucas". What about everyone else?

What AREN'T they called? Radio, County Radio, (County name) 911, Dispatch, just the county name alone, 9-1-1, Control, (county) EOC, Index, Nucom (which was taken over by 'county'), Base, (city name), Central, Fire Dispatch, EMS Dispatch, Etc.

When things get messed up, there are a ton of 'unofficial' names they get called, too. ;->

Joe M.

 

[mmtstc]

Anoka county, MN before they went 800 digital was 154.2800, and dispatch was "2800", and the name stuck with the conversion to digital.
north memorial Ambulance uses "700" no correlation to frequencies as they have about 15 different EMS channels the dispatch both analog and digital
but up here in the pristine wilderness of MN, "dispatch" is very common
another thing that isee very often is no dispatch identifier. for example, in St. Cloud, all you hear is the unit number such as "9201" and disptch knows it is traffic for them, and dispatch dosent say dispatch to 9210, they just say 9201, but if it is two untis callign each other you might hear "9512, 9201" if 9512 wanted 9201. i find it alot easier and less ittered with spurrious words to eliminate a dispatch identifier

 

[daleduke17]

Logan County, IL - Logan Dispatch
McLean County, IL - METCOM
DeWitt County, IL - CenComm (Central Communications)
Tazewell County, IL - TazzCom (I think)

 

[Mick]

CHP dispatch centers

Hello! Not all CHP dispatch centers go by that rule. For example in Orange County the Westminster, Santa Ana, and Capistrano offices call their dispatcher "Santa Ana." But the dispatch office has been in Irvine for many, many years.

In San Bernardino the dispatchers for Riverside, San Bernardino, and Rancho Cucamonga are called "Inland" after the name of their Division.

The "Monterey" dispatch office is in Salinas. There are many more exceptions these days too.

For the CHP the call is always the city in which the communications center is located. There are about 25 or 26 of those statewide for 58 counties. In the large metro areas these are co-located with Caltrans (State Transportation Department) in a Traffic Management Center.

 

[kgasso]

Pretty standard for our public safety agencies here in Southern Oregon to go by their numeric station identifier for the dispatch callsign. Each agency is assigned a station "number", which dispatch usually is referenced by.

For example, our local state police dispatchers get called by the station number ("3500") and units operating from that station are numbered under it, like "3518" and "3526"...

Our municipal/city police ("100") and county sheriff ("300") also do the same, but each unit has a specific designator/callsign which doesn't include the station ID (Adam-89, Tom-66, L-30, I-29, etc.) The city uses phonetics in their calls, the county doesn't. Not sure why.

Our local fire stations ("7300", "7500", and like 10 others), surprise surprise, often follow the same procedure for dispatch. When fire is dispatched, they are toned/called by engine number, which matches the station ID ("7307", "7308", "7511", etc.). Fire crews here tend to have a habit of just calling "Dispatch" as opposed to the station number. Once on-scene, only one party generally communicates with dispatch, and drops the engine number call, assuming the call "Command".

EMS here are private agencies (AMR and a couple of local private ones), so they do it their own way. Dispatch is generally just "Dispatch". Units are called by their rig assignment, "Medic-1", "Medic-2", etc.

 

[bigbluemsp]

Port Huron Mi they don't call it anything they just say their car number and dispatch answers. But if a outside department calls them it's Dispatch or Communications..

St. Clair County Sheriff is called Radio

MSP District 2 Dispatch is known as Station 20

 

[DX904]

The Lowndes Coutny, Georgia 911 center dispatch goes by which municipality they are serving, Hahira, Valdosta, Remerton, etc... Valdosta State University PD Dispatch uses "Radio" (or the older and now officially unapproved "VSU").

 

[RFJammed]

When you come from as small of a town as I do, it's...

"Betsy, is this car supposed to be out here?"

"No Sherriff, Billy Joe called 'bout it."

"Thanks Betsy."

 

[Kremithefrog]

All agencies here use dispatch for dispatch

 

[SCPD]

Hello! Not all CHP dispatch centers go by that rule. For example in Orange County the Westminster, Santa Ana, and Capistrano offices call their dispatcher "Santa Ana." But the dispatch office has been in Irvine for many, many years.

In San Bernardino the dispatchers for Riverside, San Bernardino, and Rancho Cucamonga are called "Inland" after the name of their Division.

The "Monterey" dispatch office is in Salinas. There are many more exceptions these days too.

Thanks for bringing up those cases. I tend to stay away form the large metro areas as much as I can, and my statement reflected my rural persceptive. I could not remember if my memory was correct that Inland was being used as a call as I drive between southern Calif. and my home though the Mojave area and it was given to CHP Bishop dispatch in order to make Bishop a 24 hour dispatch operation. They took it away from Barstow, and changed from using the blue to the gold, about 5 years ago.

When one looks at this site, http://www.chp.ca.gov/offices/officecc.html, it still appears that the call is normally the city the dispatching service is located in, with those places calling it something else being the exceptions and are located in the metro areas. Does Border use the same call or does it go by "San Diego". Also "Humboldt" uses "Arcata" as a call, if I remember right.

 

[pmsar35]

In the San Francisco bay area, CHP is dispatched by "Golden Gate" which is actually located in Vallejo.

When my SAR team (Alameda County Sheriff) is dispatched, we go 10-8 by calling in to "ALCO" or "ALCO Radio" on Field Services or Dispatch 2 depending on whether Field Services is up or not (depending on the time of day).

In the city of Alameda, when a unit wants to call in to dispatch (internally called CommCen), the unit just calls in their unit number..."2L21...", the dispatcher then replies with that same unit's number, then the unit continues with their radio traffic.

 

[agwatts]

Cochran, GA: Everyone (PD, SO, DNR, state patrol, FD, EMS, EMA, and yes, the dispatchers themselves) call them "Central."

Middle Georgia College in Cochran calls their dispatcher "200," and all the units are 201, 202, etc.

Dodge County, GA Fire Departments call it "911," as in Chester 101 to 911.

Bibb County SO calls it "Headquarters," and Macon-Bibb Fire Department calls it "Radio" or "Fire Radio."

State Patrol posts go by the post name, which is the location. The one for Bleckley Co. is in Dublin, GA, so when the troopers are calling their base, it's "Dublin" or "GSP Dublin."

 

[MOTORHEAD3902]

In the case of my agency, our seven divisional dispatch centers are identified by the town in which they are located:

Division I = "Richmond"
Division II= "Culpeper"
Division III="Appomattox"
Division IV="Wytheville" (often shortened to "Wythe" on the radio)
Division V = "Chesapeake"
Division VI= "Salem"
Division VII="Fairfax"

A dispatch sub-center in Div V used to exist on Va's Eastern Shore that identified as "Melfa" but this center was eliminated. Units that used to handle traffic through Melfa now just call Chesapeake...

 

[Mick]

San Diego

Hello. "San Diego" is still used by the CHP on the low band channels.

When one looks at this site, http://www.chp.ca.gov/offices/officecc.html, it still appears that the call is normally the city the dispatching service is located in, with those places calling it something else being the exceptions and are located in the metro areas. Does Border use the same call or does it go by "San Diego". Also "Humboldt" uses "Arcata" as a call, if I remember right.

 

[KMA367]

Re: CHP Dispatch Center names

Also "Humboldt" uses "Arcata" as a call, if I remember right.

I've only been in Humboldt County about 14 years, but in that time the CHP dispatch center has always called itself "Humboldt." The center might have been at the CHP ofice in Arcata years ago, but they're now in the Caltrans building in Eureka. Redding Dispatch Center covers part of Humboldt County as well, and they call themselves "Redding."

Humboldt County (CA) Sheriff IDs themselves in an unusual way, by using "Control" plus the freq and repeater they're using at the moment. If they're transmitting on Ch 1's "C" repeater, they'll say "Control 1C to 1Q22..." If on "B" repeaterr they're "Control 1B to 1Q14". On Ch 4 (simplex) it's "Control 4 to 1X3."

 

[jmp883]

I dispatch for 2 agenices in northern NJ. At the full-time job we don't share any of our frequencies with anyone else so whether you're working at the PD-1, PD-2, or FD/EMS radio consoles everything is 'HQ to unit.....' or unit.....to HQ'.

The part-time job shares 2 VHF-Lo PD frequencies and the FD frequency with several other local agenices so each town is called by its name on the radio. In addition each town is assigned a 3 digit number series for all their vehicles (PD/FD/EMS/DPW). I know that if I hear a '5--' unit it is a vehicle from my town calling. Fortunately most of the towns on this VHF-Lo system have already moved to their own individual UHF frequencies. This has cut down tremendously on the amount of traffic you'd have to listen to during a shift. My department is also going UHF. We already have the frequenices, we're just waiting for ALL the equipment to be delivered so that the dispatch consoles and ALL mobiles can be installed at once. The old VHF-Lo frequencies will be maintained so that if a major incident occurs in any of the towns we can all operate together on a common frequency.

 

[BigEd1314]

Here in my small town of London, KY, we either call our dispatch center "dispatch" or "Laurel Disptach" or "London", Laurel being the county I live in. We only have one dispatch center with 3 dispatchers on duty at 3 different consoles. And we just use our unit number and say dispatch, Laurel Dispatch, or London. Now with kenwood fleetsync, all the unit has to say is dispatch, london, or laurel distach and they automaticlly know who that particular unit is. But since most local FD's don't have kenwoods, or don't have enough money to upgrade, they still use their unti numbers to call dispatch. Another thing that is coming into the picture is MDT, mobile data terminals, now the radios are being used even less.

 

[SCPD]

In Hopatcong,NJ, it's called Central.

 

[jmp883]

BigEd1314 wrote:

Another thing that is coming into the picture is MDT, mobile data terminals, now the radios are being used even less.

You don't use the MDT's for primary dispatch of calls do you? Both my agencies use MDT's, but as a supplement to the radio.

The MDT's at the full-time job allow the mobile unit to see the call as I see it on my screen after it's been entered by the call-taker. However our S.O.P.'s state that the officer cannot acknowledge the call until he receives it via radio. He also cannot access any function keys that would change his status, only the dispatcher can do that. One thing the officers will do is if they see a call that is in their zone sit for too long without being dispatched they'll prompt the dispatcher: "HQ, I'm available to take that call". When doing MV stops they see all the same information we see, including DL status, REG status, and warrant status. However, just like when dispatching calls, they cannot act solely on the information received from the MDT. They must verbally confirm the information with the dispatcher to insure that the information they're looking at is identical to what dispatch has.

At the part-time job the officers MDT's can't access the CAD system at all, they can only access the DMV, warrants, and NCIC databases.

They are a great tool to pass sensitive, but non-critical, information to the officers as they are responding to a call. Critical information, like weapons on-scene or restraining orders in effect must go via voice.

 

[SCPD]

I've only been in Humboldt County about 14 years, but in that time the CHP dispatch center has always called itself "Humboldt." The center might have been at the CHP ofice in Arcata years ago, but they're now in the Caltrans building in Eureka. Redding Dispatch Center covers part of Humboldt County as well, and they call themselves "Redding."

I can't belive how the time goes, as I haven't been in Humboldt County for almost 14 years now. I suspected the CHP "Humboldt" comm center was in Eureka as it makes sense to have it in the largest city on the north coast colocated with Caltrans. The office by dispatch center page on the CHP's webiste indicates it is in Arcata and that is where I got this impression.

My wife and I need to take a vacation up that way one of these years. There are a lot of gaps in my geopraphical experience and most of my trips were on big fires in the Klamath River Valley. The one vacation I took up there since my childhood just whetted my appetite for return trips.