RBFD415
Member
Funny- I listened to the same job and managed to miss this whole confusion over LZ contact frequencies?! Not that I doubt any of it!
At any rate- a couple of observations- To begin, when I first saw the new county channel line up- 2 glaring discrepancies jumped out at me- the lack of a county wide fire police channel, and the LZ contact we're discussing here. While fire police can be debated another day, the topic at hand seems fairly important, something that should be quickly addressed!
The LZ contact needs to be simple, as in simplex, with the least number of moving parts if you will. A standard freq would serve best over a large area- somehow I thought that 154.2650 freq, sometimes referred to as the south jersey net seemed to fill the bill for a big chunk of the state. Failing that 154.2800 seemed to work fine!
When I was Chief we did a fair number of helicopter LZ assignments, 2-3 a week (at times) for inter-hospital flights. From talking to various flight crews, it quickly became obvious that talking to us before touching down wasn't high on their priority list. Also-often, contact radio frequency information was given by a PD dispatcher, or other staff not well versed with the importance of ALL the information- input/output and PLs!
Also- keep in mind just how many different helicopters we're talking about now, plus, if they are using a back-up ship, perhaps due to a service issue- then the onboard radio will not have local contacts preprogramed. Also- here in central Monmouth- we're just as likely to get a helicopter from NYC, OR Philly. If the bird was strictly a NJ operation- they would still need to have 21 counties of contacts loaded. Most can program on the go- but like I said- the flight crews don't see this as nearly an imperative as the ground people.
At any rate- a couple of observations- To begin, when I first saw the new county channel line up- 2 glaring discrepancies jumped out at me- the lack of a county wide fire police channel, and the LZ contact we're discussing here. While fire police can be debated another day, the topic at hand seems fairly important, something that should be quickly addressed!
The LZ contact needs to be simple, as in simplex, with the least number of moving parts if you will. A standard freq would serve best over a large area- somehow I thought that 154.2650 freq, sometimes referred to as the south jersey net seemed to fill the bill for a big chunk of the state. Failing that 154.2800 seemed to work fine!
When I was Chief we did a fair number of helicopter LZ assignments, 2-3 a week (at times) for inter-hospital flights. From talking to various flight crews, it quickly became obvious that talking to us before touching down wasn't high on their priority list. Also-often, contact radio frequency information was given by a PD dispatcher, or other staff not well versed with the importance of ALL the information- input/output and PLs!
Also- keep in mind just how many different helicopters we're talking about now, plus, if they are using a back-up ship, perhaps due to a service issue- then the onboard radio will not have local contacts preprogramed. Also- here in central Monmouth- we're just as likely to get a helicopter from NYC, OR Philly. If the bird was strictly a NJ operation- they would still need to have 21 counties of contacts loaded. Most can program on the go- but like I said- the flight crews don't see this as nearly an imperative as the ground people.
