LACoFD Dispatching & Station Alerting

[SkepticalEd]

Hi all. New to this type of "scanning." Just began listening to LACoFD Blue 8, and have some questions about their dispatching and station alerting.

My local area (not SoCal) has always used single or two-tone alerting before voice dispatch. I've noticed that on Blue 8 most dispatches are not preceded by two-tone station alerting, and assume it's because most (or all) stations are alerted and the station radio becomes unmuted by a non-audible system, like CAD (or a data RF channel), then are followed by voice information by radio.

Q - When they do send one or several two-tone alerts before the voice dispatch, who are those two-tone alerts for?

On the station alarm system itself, I recently watched a few YT videos from a guest at LACoFD Station 161. It seems the station alarm is a higher tone that comes on quietly then gets louder, followed by a lower tone, then a few beeps. Seems much more gentle to the senses than older alarm systems that were used and continue to be used.

Q - Is this how every LACoFD station is alerted?

Thanks in advance for any info.

 

[Kingscup]

You essentially have it right. I don’t know if the digital signals sent to the stations are over the air or hardwired somehow. The two tone alerts are for various personnel that don’t listen to the radio 24/7. Mostly, it is chief officers but it can be dozer operators, hand crews etc are a couple off the top of my head. Fire stations also have 1+1 tones as back up if the main system goes down.

The station alerting system is the old Motorola Quik-Call I tones LACoFD used to use prior to the current system. It is kind of a homage to the old tones.

 

[Eng74]

My county went to a ZTRON system for station alerting I think LA County uses a similar system. The stations do have quick call as a back up, in fact the WAN went down last night so everyone was on quick call and MDT’s were down so there was a lot more radio traffic for on scene, completed and in quarters. Chiefs, hand crews and air ops have pagers that are use the quick call system so they are always get an over the air alert.

 

[SkepticalEd]

Thanks for the interesting info. Very helpful.

I also found an older post and manufacturer article, detailing the new CAD and MDC/MDT system from RadioMobile that LACoFD was putting in for alerting stations and vehicles. Appears they are currently using it based on quite a few more recent YT videos I've been finding of station tone outs.

Unless I'm missing something, and correct me if I'm wrong, it seems primary radio traffic (dispatch voice and tac ops) is on 460-470 MHz freqs, with backup station dispatch on their older VHF system. Looks like the MDCs also have GPS mapping, so I'm assuming they have mobile cellular data or an onboard map database in each terminal, but have also read that the station/vehicle encoding/decoding is done over a dedicated 470 MHz data channel.

Q - Anyone know if the RadioMobile station and vehicle MDCs are cellular based, or RF data with onboard database, or is it a combo of dedicated RF data channel and cellular?

I see what you're referring to the homage to the old Quick Call that they've put into their station alarm sounds. I've seen more than a handful of YT videos, each from different stations capturing the station alarm going off. It does appear the sounds are two dual-frequency tones, and all the stations I've seen in the videos seem to be using the exact same frequencies of tones, though without an analyzer, I can't confirm this, nor whether the timing of tones and spacing is identical to the old QC tones...

Q - From the station alert tones I've heard on YT videos, which all appear to be the same two dual-frequency tones, were these replicated from one specific station's old Quick Call tones? Like the frequencies from the tones used on the Emergency! series Station 51, but really cleaned up?

I've always been more curious how these things are put together than the calls being carried on them...

Thanks in advance for any further info

 

[Uplink]

Yes, those are QCII tones, they are still used today, every day, for special units. The freqs are in the Wiki. I have updated several copter and boat tones to the Wiki over the years. You can program your Uniden's TONE OUT function, or almost any Motorola radio you have lying around to decode them, if you get tired of listening to "routine" chatter all day.

 

[kylem1229]

I also found an older post and manufacturer article, detailing the new CAD and MDC/MDT system from RadioMobile that LACoFD was putting in for alerting stations and vehicles. Appears they are currently using it based on quite a few more recent YT videos I've been finding of station tone outs.

Q - From the station alert tones I've heard on YT videos, which all appear to be the same two dual-frequency tones, were these replicated from one specific station's old Quick Call tones? Like the frequencies from the tones used on the Emergency! series Station 51, but really cleaned up?

I've always been more curious how these things are put together than the calls being carried on them...

Thanks in advance for any further info

The tones you hear in the youtube video are the same across all LACOFD stations. Not sure if they were taken from the quick call tones or what, but they are part of the in station alerting system and you wont hear those over the air. It's basically tones just to alert them rather than the speakers opening up to Blue 8 and just hearing radio traffic with no warning.

The tones over the radio are for BC's, Camps, etc- places where personnel may not be in the station or at the radio at all times.

 

[SkepticalEd]

Thanks Uplink for the info.
I don’t have a two-tone decoding radio for local traffic, just a couple Bendix-King handhelds from my old job, and old scanners.

Thanks kylem1229. That answers my question exactly. Makes my listening more enjoyable when I understand how their system works.

 

[Code20Photog]

When you hear those tones, lock it down, something big is likely happening.

 

[XTSJunior]

Tune in tomorrow (6/1) to LAC V-4 at 0700..