As everyone has heard, digital has issues on a fireground. The noise going on in those situations does bad things with digital radio I hear, a problem not as bad on analog. Also once inside of a structure, the signal isn't as good and things start breaking up and voices go "digital". Being trapped inside of a burning structure with a non-working radio is a bad deal, obviously, and the trust their vhf rigs. This is a classic case of re-invention of the wheel gone bad. It's paid for, so they are being pushed to make use of the new system, despite the fact that most don't want it.
So they have been working on vehicular repeaters that allow the fire vehicles to create their own little sub-network at the scene, which works much better, but isn't perfected yet. I have also heard talk of them using 700mhz when they go live with the system.
I sold a scanner to a guy a while back who is actually working on the system and he told me that it will be years before the whole department uses it for everything, maybe many years, and not to look for it happening any time soon.
So in the meantime I have my vhf groundplane up high, connected to a good radio. I can hear the mobile radios for many miles, but to hear the portables working a fire scene they need to be less than 1 1/2 miles away, if they are inside of a burning structure. I too would love to hear everything, but it looks like it is going to be a while.
