GSP Fire/EMS scanning

[NCFireman11]

I am hoping some locals will give me some guidance. I'm planning on multiple trips to the Greenville-Spartanburg area in the next few months. I primarily monitor fire & EMS, no real interest in LE. I have a SDS100 and a 436HP. My plan was to add Palmetto 800 to the SDS100, and the various VHF/UHF frequencies to the 436. Are all FDs now on Palmetto in Greenville County? And EMS is the only Palmetto user in Spartanburg County? Finally, is there a reason to add the fire admin TGs? I'm only interested in fireground operations, not day to day ops.

 

[brian]

Essentially, all Greenville County FD traffic is on Palmetto 800. There are a number of different dispatch channels, as some departments are dispatched by the county, some by MedCom, some by Greer and some by their own dispatchers.

It's best to program all of the Ops and Admin channels, as they seem to be used interchangeably. In some cases, Ops talkgroups are used for operations, and in other cases Admin talkgroups are used for operations.

Note that Greenville County EMS uses the Central, North and South talkgroups for operations.

In Spartanburg, essentially all of the fire department communications are on VHF. There are some fire communications on Palmetto 800, mostly among FDs on the border with Greenville County, but that traffic is mostly administrative/talk-around in nature.

Spartanburg EMS is the only Palmetto 800 user in Spartanburg that you're likely interested in. Most other traffic is oriented toward law enforcement.

 

[NCFireman11]

Essentially, all Greenville County FD traffic is on Palmetto 800. There are a number of different dispatch channels, as some departments are dispatched by the county, some by MedCom, some by Greer and some by their own dispatchers.

It's best to program all of the Ops and Admin channels, as they seem to be used interchangeably. In some cases, Ops talkgroups are used for operations, and in other cases Admin talkgroups are used for operations.

Note that Greenville County EMS uses the Central, North and South talkgroups for operations.

In Spartanburg, essentially all of the fire department communications are on VHF. There are some fire communications on Palmetto 800, mostly among FDs on the border with Greenville County, but that traffic is mostly administrative/talk-around in nature.

Spartanburg EMS is the only Palmetto 800 user in Spartanburg that you're likely interested in. Most other traffic is oriented toward law enforcement.

Thank you for the reply! What is the rationale for Admin & Ops 10,20,30,40,50,70,80,100,110? Are these zones in the county? No Ops 60 or 90? And fire ground/scene ops may be on North, South, or Central as well?

 

[brian]

Thank you for the reply! What is the rationale for Admin & Ops 10,20,30,40,50,70,80,100,110? Are these zones in the county? No Ops 60 or 90? And fire ground/scene ops may be on North, South, or Central as well?

I can't answer your questions with certainty. I don't monitor Greenville often.

I can speak to the fact that the channel names came from actual code plug information when the County switched to Palmetto 800 a few years ago. It's possible that some of the channel names have changed since then and we don't know, but I feel like the on-air references to channel names are generally consistent with what's in the RR database.

If you look at the website listing for these talkgroups (Palmetto 800 Trunking System, Various, South Carolina and scroll down to the Greenville County section) you'll see that the Admin and Ops talkgroups are grouped with the dispatch talkgroup they're associated with. So, FDs dispatched on the County Fire dispatch group typically use Admin/Ops 10, Greenville City FD typically use Admin/Ops 5x, FDs dispatched by Greer typically use Admin/Ops 8x, etc. If you're just looking at the listing in Sentinel, you won't see these groupings.

It seems like North/Central/South is generally just used by EMS, however they may be used for interop communications between EMS units and FD units with both are responding to the same call.