Rural/Metro Fire is now on TACN for primary communications. For now, VHF is still active as Dispatch, Paging, and Station Alerting. But most voice traffic for responses will now occur on TACN. Most of the portables on the apparatus are 700/800 MHz Kenwood Viking VP6000s. Every apparatus has a also has a Tri Band Portable and Mobile for 700/800, VHF, and UHF. The RMFD Chiefs have Motorola APX8000s. Knox County Rescue also now uses their own talkgroups on TACN for responses. However, you will no longer hear a lot of traffic or responses from Knox County Rescue due to changes effective February 1st. RMFD has access to a few of the KCSO channels as well. They also have access to: Town of Farragut, Karns FD, Seymour VFD, and Knox Rescue Channels. Another set of channels they of course have access to is the AMR 800 MHz channels. Their radios include both the Blount AMR and Knox AMR operations channels for TACN. You will also hear the AMR Critical Care Ambulances and RMFD Fire Medics on both RMFD TACN channels and AMR TACN channels. However, AMR remains on UHF for primary communications in Knox County until radios can be upgraded.While, Blount AMR still operates on VHF for primary communications. KFD, KPD, UTPD and Knox Schools did not share any of their channels with Knox Rescue, RMFD, or AMR. But those agencies do have access to most of KCR, AMR, and RMFD channels. They also have access to shared interoperability channels from Knoxville-Knox County EMA when Interoperability between those agencies are needed. On mutual aid calls with Seymour VFD, RMFD may use the SVFD TACN channels or grab a VHF capable radio.
