FireLink

How does everyone feel about radios?  Should everyone have one or should it just be officer and the truck?  I feel that everyone should have a radio.  With that said let me explain why.  What if you are interior and you need to contact someone, you can't, or at least in our department unless there is an officer with you.  The other issue I have is during the day the officers are the only ones with radios and that leaves nothing for the ones that do the responding.  I am not complaining just trying to state a potential hazard I see.  I know that some would say that is way to much radio traffic, but if you TRAIN your people on communications then they would know what is necessary radio traffic.  I have heard some officers on the radio with WAY to much traffic......anyway this is just my question and my thoughts.  I am just looking for input from others and even suggestions.  Thanks

i only run with a volunteer dept. But i do believe that it is a good thing for firefighters that need radios to have them..ON SCENE. In my opinion for every member to have a personaly radio to take home is not needed. It ties up the air traffic because everybody is gonna wanna say that they are responding and wherre from and how far. In our department our line officers and fire police carry radios. if we get tripped out our chief will usually advise control if he is going to station or scene, and if i am going to be more than 3-5 minutes out or it sounds like we dont have much for a crew i will call in and advise that im in route to our station as will our 2nd asst who is a truck operator. As for onscene i have somewhat mixed views. On car accidents unless its spread out over quite a distance only fire police and officers should have radios. structure fires hydrant man, officers, interior crews and such should each have a radio but need to be used with caution. I have one guy that no matter what the call grabs a radio and turns it up full blast, well if he is near me as im trying to relay something to control or another officer or team you get nothing but backfeed. Ive tried telling hijm many times about it because one of these days that message that no one can hear is going to be something important and no onw will hear anything but squeling. i guess it all boils down to having your guys use there head about how they use them

We have just changed, it used to be there was a radio for the driver and the officer seat only.  New radios have been issued with the goal of one per air pack, which I think is a necessity.  The officer/crew leader is the one who communicates with command/operations, the additional radios are safety, if the officer's radio become inoperable, if a crew member is separated or some other instance that might occur an extra radio could make the difference.  These additional radios are typically kept off but carried with the crew members and I think that this is a great safety issus.   As far a training people how and when to use them, you might want to look at the thread about common sense!

The main reason that only a few key people have radios in most departments is due to the cost of each radio. If it is a Motorola radio then take the model number and add about 15% that is close to what that radio costs. For example if you have an XTL-5000 your cost would be 5000 x .15 + 5000 = $5750.00 so you can see that the cost of the radio is worth as much as your SCBA. Granted I believe that every member of the department that is on a scene should have a radio. But, it usually won't happen unless you have a good grant writer.

futher more I have a dept radio and out of the 9 months i've had it  I can count on my two hands the times that I have used it.Because we have a asst chief and a capt. that stay on it to where you cant get a word in other wise. I use my radio for a truck that dose not have a radio that don't get used alot. So I mainly just use it to listen to so why do you need 50,000 dollars worth of radio's I can't justify the exspence of it.

As far as radio chatter and over-burdening dispatch, two words:  fire ground.  As for costs, I don't know if the example is correct or not but  i do know that they aren't cheap.  Fortunately we are well supported by the town.  The radios are for contingency use and not general chatter, better to have it and not need it then to need it and not have it.

In my department everyone has a radio. I believe that everyone should have a radio due to that I have seen people loose contact with their own crews during fire attacks because of heavy smoke with no visability and extremely loud noise in the background making it near impossible to hear normal chatter. I also agree that a strick SOG needs to be in place to reduce the general chatter that can easily become annoying during normal work communications with everyone having their own radio. The best solution is just keep the tactical communications to the officers on scene but have the radios for each incase of emergency.

As far as that goes has any of you used the pager radio combos?  Do they work?

      I am a dispatcher in a county with around 106,000 residents, we dispatch for the San Angelo Fire Department (8 stations: 8 engines/quint, 1 rescue, 1 battalion chief, 4 ambulances & 1 ARFF) and for 10 volunteer departments.  I am also a volunteer firefighter for one of those departments.

      I am all for everyone having a radio and having it on.  With proper SOG's and subsequent training, there should not be that much traffic over it.  Unless someone has something to report or is specifically asked for info, they should not be on the radio.  With all the noise that can come from a fire scene, whether outside or inside during an interior attack, everyone should be able to hear what is going on, specifically operational orders or a request for help.  With everyone being aware of what is going on at the fireground, should make things safer.

     Our city just bought a new M/A Com (formerly G.E and / or Ericcson) 800 MHz trunked radio system.  When the city fire department ordered radios, they ordered one for each position on every apparatus, whether it be a medic, engine or rescue.  Everything is OK, except for getting everyone to listen to the dispatch and switch ALL the radios to the assigned talk-group.

      In the county, we still operate off 150 MHz analog.  Most everyone tries to purchase a radio.  However, some departments that have enough radios, will assign them to officers and some members.  There is a primary dispatch channel, where everyone receives their dispatches and the responding apparatus advise dispatch of their status (responding, on scene....etc...).  Then we have access to several operational channels that can be used by everyone after the initial dispatch for responding and operations on scene.  Many of our departments are very short handed, so often limited personnel (often only the drivers), respond to the station, while everone else responds directly to the scene.  The ones responding either to the station or the scene will advise which, so everyone else, such as the senior resonding department member (Chief, capt, etc..) or the incident commander has an idea of who is responding and to where.  This often avoids having more than what is needed to pick up the trucks.  OK, I know we must sound a little backwards out here.

      But even with a limited number of channels such as engineer_1 was talking about, if it is done properly, it should not be that much of a problem.

Just about everyone in our dept. has a radio. We use several different frequencies so that our dispatch don't have to listen to all of us at the same time if we are out at an incident. Those who do not have a radio are not permitted to fight certain fires (like interior) due to safety issues; otherwise they have to be with someone else that has a radio.