I have been spending some time lately listening to the various fire departments in Dakota County. I started out by wanting to just log the various Fire Tone Out frequencies, but then I realized that it really pointed out how busy some departments near me are and what they respond to.
Clearly, the Burnsville Fire Department and South Metro Fire Departments are the busiest in Dakota County. Both respond to a lot of medical calls. They do differ a lot, however, in that Burnsville Fire has all of Burnsville as it EMS Primary Service Area.
South Metro Fire, which serves the cities of South Saint Paul and West Saint Paul, has M Health Fairview, formerly known as Health East, as the ALS provider in their area. South Metro Fire does have three ambulances, but M Health Fairview is the ALS provider in their area.
Hastings Fire seems to be the next busiest in terms of tone outs. They provide both ALS and BLS services with their ambulances.
I am finding that I am actually more interested in the actual fire calls. Focusing on just those can be a bit of a challenge, however, because there are so many medical calls. I have been focusing on the fire departments closest to where I live. Those are Apple Valley, Eagan, Hastings, Inver Grove Heights, Lakeville and Rosemount.
I have a Uniden SDS100. It does have the Fire Tone-Out feature. I have programmed all 32 of the Fire Tone-Out memories with the Tone A and Tone B for the above fire departments. The Uniden SDS100 also has a built in recording feature. I have been using that a bit to listen to calls missed when I am away.
Dakota County does simulcast the fire calls on an ARMER talkgroup. I decided quite some time back to not include that in my day-to-day scan list, however.
It seems as if more fire departments are using a Duty Crew Program to staff some of their stations during critical times.
For those that are more knowledgeable than I am regarding fire service paging/tone-outs, do you find that most use an All Call page for everything or are more paging specific stations? From what I have heard so far, my fire department seems to use All Call for almost all fire and medical calls. There are two fire stations, but usually I hear the All Call page for most calls. I have also heard a Fire Officer page, but it is far less common.
I should also add that if you are depending on the information here to determine your Fire Tone-Out frequencies, I would encourage you to do your own research. The information here is incomplete. I am not writing that as a criticism, but it is just the reality of the situation.
wiki.radioreference.com
Clearly, the Burnsville Fire Department and South Metro Fire Departments are the busiest in Dakota County. Both respond to a lot of medical calls. They do differ a lot, however, in that Burnsville Fire has all of Burnsville as it EMS Primary Service Area.
South Metro Fire, which serves the cities of South Saint Paul and West Saint Paul, has M Health Fairview, formerly known as Health East, as the ALS provider in their area. South Metro Fire does have three ambulances, but M Health Fairview is the ALS provider in their area.
Hastings Fire seems to be the next busiest in terms of tone outs. They provide both ALS and BLS services with their ambulances.
I am finding that I am actually more interested in the actual fire calls. Focusing on just those can be a bit of a challenge, however, because there are so many medical calls. I have been focusing on the fire departments closest to where I live. Those are Apple Valley, Eagan, Hastings, Inver Grove Heights, Lakeville and Rosemount.
I have a Uniden SDS100. It does have the Fire Tone-Out feature. I have programmed all 32 of the Fire Tone-Out memories with the Tone A and Tone B for the above fire departments. The Uniden SDS100 also has a built in recording feature. I have been using that a bit to listen to calls missed when I am away.
Dakota County does simulcast the fire calls on an ARMER talkgroup. I decided quite some time back to not include that in my day-to-day scan list, however.
It seems as if more fire departments are using a Duty Crew Program to staff some of their stations during critical times.
For those that are more knowledgeable than I am regarding fire service paging/tone-outs, do you find that most use an All Call page for everything or are more paging specific stations? From what I have heard so far, my fire department seems to use All Call for almost all fire and medical calls. There are two fire stations, but usually I hear the All Call page for most calls. I have also heard a Fire Officer page, but it is far less common.
I should also add that if you are depending on the information here to determine your Fire Tone-Out frequencies, I would encourage you to do your own research. The information here is incomplete. I am not writing that as a criticism, but it is just the reality of the situation.
