what we now know as northeast cmed(central medical emergency direction) is actually a combination of two cmed centers. What was once known as north shore cmed located at the old union hospital combined with merrimack valley cmed (still located at the lawrence general hospital) now known as northeast cmed, is one of 5 cmed centers in massachusetts. We currently operate off 13 tower sites,9 uhf,4 vhf. Region 3 covers all of merrimack valley and all of the northshore of boston, basically from the NH border to Chelsea,Westford to Rockport. We currently use the same basic 10 uhf med channels for the valley and north shore; the only difference being the p.l.numbers,,,156.7 for merrimack valley,and 162.2 for the north shore,we run our 4 vhf towers csq. If you want to monitor the ambulance traffic, you have to monitor both transmit and recieve frequencies(similar to the way taxi cabs operate). The bad thing about this is the fact the units walk all over each other when trying to contact us. Besides our radio equipment we have voip and voip patch capabilities for interop when needed,which works very well. All 5 cmed centers are tied in over this system. We also have an addl radio with the fire dist 5/6/15, the nemlec west, and area wide tac for interop. Currently being installed is a uhf mutual aid frequency that all the ambulance services will have in their console for communications directly with us (I'll get it for you). The current 10 uhf channels will be doubled soon to give us our own banks to use to help with co-channel problems currently being experienced. Some of our many functions also include the dispatching and tracking of both the lawrence and lowell medic units,p-1 and p-100 which run out of saints mem hosp in lowell. They are dispatched by trinity, they sign on with us, and we track them until they're back in service. P-1000 is activated for special events, etc. We are called directly by patriot for als responses in their coverage area. All the fire depts also call us directly for als responses in merrimack valley,except for lowell.p-2 and p-200 which run out of lawrence general hospital. They cover the general Lawrence area and are dispatched by us directly. P-2000 is activated for special events, etc. We also handle requests for med control,med flight requests,and the region 3 hospital diversion system,as well as being part of the region mci trailer,and the ambulance mutual aid running card system. Cmed is staffed by two operators 1st and 2nd shift mon thru friday, and with only one person nights,weekends and some holidays. We did close to 90,000 calls for 2010 and our call volume has been increasing by appx 7% per year. We are looking at funding for future improvements to our communications etc.