SC medical helicopters
- Thread starter Bonkk083
- Start date
Medtrans would be dispatched on Greenville Simulcast if all the affiliated radios were on the Greenville simulcast. If a radio (helicopter, portable radio, base etc..) on the medtrans dispatch channel is affiliated with another tower site; then traffic would temporarily be received on that site. Does that help?
You may be using the term MedTrans to refer to a specific helicopter, GHS MedTrans (formerly MedTrans One) based in Greenville. Its dispatch talkgroup is typically only carried on the Greenville simulcast site.
MedTrans also refers to the company that operates multiple helicopters in the state: GHS MedTrans, LifeNet out of Anderson, Regional One in Spartanburg, Air Reach in Florence/Marion, and Care Flight in Walterboro. You'll hear all of these helos operating on the MedTrans Roam talkgroup 51704 for talk-off/landing, in flight updates, and how to communicate with landing zone ground contacts. This talkgroup is carried on many Palmetto 800 sites, depending on where a helicopter is located and where their bases are located.
LifeNet (aka Air Methods) is a different company that operates multiple helos in SC- LifeNet 2 in Camden, LifeNet 3 in Orangburg, LifeNet 7 in Laurens, and LifeNet 10 in Pickens. They dispatch on talkgroup 28609, which like MedTrans Roam, can be heard on multiple Palmetto 800 sites depending on where the helicopters are. But I would assume that most sites that cover the base locations listed above would carry the LifeNet talkgroup most, if not all, of the time.
Communication with landing zone contacts can happen on a variety of different channels, depending on the preference of the agency handling the LZ. In SC, sometimes they'll use the SC Air 1/2/3 talkgroups. In other locations, they'll use VHF frequencies assigned to the local agency. For helos in the upstate, they can operate on LZ channels on the NC VIPER system. You'll typically only hear these channels on sites that cover the landing zone area.
You'll sometimes hear the helicopters send patient reports to the hospital receiving the patient, and that can be on a trunked system talkgroup or on VHF HEAR 155.340. And you can sometimes hear helos announce their presence on UNICOM air frequencies when they are operating around airports, and even sometimes on the helo chat channel 123.025.
It's remarkable how the flight crew on these helicopters can manage all of the different communications on a flight.
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