Volusia County Fire

[RF-Burns]

Can anyone in Volusia County confirm all fire departments are dispatched on Eastside Fire Dispatch, talkgroup 289?

I see in the database Edgewater, New Smyrna and others have their own Fire Dispatch talkgroups but are they used?

 

[Bote]

I would also be interested to know when/which stations get alerted over the VHF paging channel(s) which is related. I only ever monitor Volusia while driving through on a road trip so I never have time to focus on it. TNX.

 

[902]

EVERYONE is dispatched on "FIRE 1" which is TG 289 on BOTH the East and West simulcast systems. Splitting the county into FIRE 1 for east and FIRE 2 for west was discontinued several years ago. The discussion on when/why is searchable in the forum. Every once in a while there is a transmission or "join" on FIRE 2, but infrequently and not enough to miss anything if it's not in your scan list.

Any reference to "dispatch" on an individual city's TG is a legacy reference, and I don't know who keeps stoking the database up with that information. I think it's been pruned from there several times before, but it always seems to come back. EVERYONE is dispatched on TG 289. Some municipalities have retained those TGs as administrative, logistics, training, or individual fireground channels, but that's local use and your mileage may vary listening to those. They are active and there is some traffic, but not like the assigned TAC channels.

NOT EVERYONE is dispatched on VHF (I don't have a list of specifically who, but it's probably in the Wiki). It's timed, so only specific Zetron tones key VHF - and VHF transmitters are zoned, not necessarily simulcast. When TG 289 (FIRE 1) and 290 (FIRE 2) were both independently active, you could hear alerts for East and West heterodyning with each other as they transmitted independent alerts on the same frequency. Thanks to the capture effect of FM, and the transmitters being close to their intended receivers, no one who needed the system noticed any interference. Scannerland did hear interference. The VHF transmissions are one-way broadcasts and time-out, meaning the transmitter comes up when it has to for the proper agency/tone and stays up hard-patched to TG 289 for a predetermined amount of time and then drops out regardless of activity on TG 289. It's not a permanent hard-patch that's always up.

It will change at some point in the next 6 months.

 

[MegaHertz315]

I would also be interested to know when/which stations get alerted over the VHF paging channel(s) which is related. I only ever monitor Volusia while driving through on a road trip so I never have time to focus on it. TNX.

I let my Uniden's do some recordings while I was out enjoying some beach time at Daytona Beach Shores this past week.

The following stations where verified to page out on VHF (154.340). Stations 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 22, 23, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 41, 46, 52, 53, 55, 67, 68, 71, 73, 77, 81, 94, 96 & 98. I was also able to verify their tones.

I would use caution on using the Fire Tone Outs listed on the RadioReference Wiki page. The information is a little over 11 years old, and the two-tone information that I received through recordings did not match up most of the time with whats on RR.

Example, station 77 on there shows A 543.0 B 527.0 I set a Unication G3 to receive the alerts, and didn't hear the calls. The Uniden showed tone A 547.5 B 667.5 I then programmed that into the G3 and was then able to receive all the call alerts for station 77.

 

[seagravebuff60]

Can anyone in Volusia County confirm all fire departments are dispatched on Eastside Fire Dispatch, talkgroup 289?

Correct. Confirmed. All Volusia County departments are dispatched on East Fire (TG 289)

I see in the database Edgewater, New Smyrna and others have their own Fire Dispatch talkgroups but are they used?

No

 

[seagravebuff60]

but not like the assigned TAC channels.

I thought the Fire Tacs were randomly assigned based on traffic and incidents. I didn't know they were assigned. Do you have a list of the channels assigned?

 

[902]

I thought the Fire Tacs were randomly assigned based on traffic and incidents. I didn't know they were assigned. Do you have a list of the channels assigned?

No, you're right, they are assigned by dispatch to a TAC channel at the time of dispatch, not pre-assigned based on department or area. About 15 years ago, it seems they did have preferences of who went where, but the only thing that seems to be fixed now is TAC 9 which is hard-patched to Flagler County. There may be another hard-patch to Seminole County, as well. TAC 3 seems to be smaller, shorter duration incidents, usually with multiple events happening at the same time. The other TACs seem to be longer duration incidents and may be multiple events, but are usually singular incidents.

What's not used are the "__(city name)__ Dispatch." Not sure why those are still in the database that way. If anything, it's usually an administrative channel or internal training channel that can be used for drills.

I also haven't seen much, if anything, on what used to be the West talkgroups. Seems Beach Safety is parked on Fire 1 now unless they're meeting fire or EMS on one of the TACs.

 

[seagravebuff60]

Does anyone know if they are sending the Pletron tones directly to the EDACS system and then simulcasting onto VHF counterparts or toning on VHF directly and simulcasting to the EDACS System?

I also see this in the database, but I can't find what TG 06-101 is on EDACS. What is TG 06-101?

Frequency	Input	License	Type	Tone	Alpha Tag	Description	Mode	Tag
155.040		KXM604	B	131.8 PL	Volusia FR 06101	Fire (simulcast of TRS 06-101)	FM	Fire Dispatch

 

[902]

Does anyone know if they are sending the Pletron tones directly to the EDACS system and then simulcasting onto VHF counterparts or toning on VHF directly and simulcasting to the EDACS System?

I also see this in the database, but I can't find what TG 06-101 is on EDACS. What is TG 06-101?

Frequency	Input	License	Type	Tone	Alpha Tag	Description	Mode	Tag
155.040		KXM604	B	131.8 PL	Volusia FR 06101	Fire (simulcast of TRS 06-101)	FM	Fire Dispatch

I've never heard anything on that. I've never heard anything on the municipal fire frequencies listed in the database, either. 06-101 should be TG 849. Maybe this was active 15 years ago when there was a competitive dispatch center in Port Orange, but now that everything is under one roof? As far as I've heard, 154.340 is the only active VHF fire frequency aside from VFIRE21. Not all of the tones are sent over VHF. Many of the city departments are 800-only. But with analog trunking vs P25 phase 2, tones may be distorted if the vocoder doesn't know how to process them. I have heard of some other systems running tones on their P25 phase 2 systems, but the better - and much faster - way of doing that is call alerting the station radio. It's less than a second versus 30 or 45 seconds of "y'all come" tones.

 

[cmckay]

I thought the Fire Tacs were randomly assigned based on traffic and incidents. I didn't know they were assigned. Do you have a list of the channels assigned?

Tac 3 is EMERGENCY medical calls
Tac 4 is for Firefighters to talk directly with the EMS Systems Status Coordinator
Tac 5 is NON EMERGENCY medical calls
Tac 6 is Motor Vehicle Accidents
Tac 7 is MISC Fire related incidents (Power line, tree on fire, etc)
Tac 8 is an overflow channel for Tac 6 and 7
Tac 9 is reserved for ANY CALL in District 16
Tac 10-12 Structure Fire / Multi Agency Response

Fire Department and EMS (Either county ems or city ems) all read/talk on these tac channels.

All departments are dispatched on Fire 1 and given a tac assignment at time of dispatch