The Social Network & Community JUST for Firefighters
proper radio communications
This subject of radio communications is essential on the fire scene. All too often when we have a emergency, our adreneline gets the best of us. You need to be smart and stay off the radio unless it is something important or if called. Listening to some of the firefighters whom have been trapped in buildings, it is shocking to hear the amount of chatter on the radio when someones trying to call a mayday!!! It also seems with increased radios in the truck and nobody properly trained on the use and communications we need and don't need, it is constant abuse of the airways. If you need to call the chief on the radio and ask what truck to bring, perhaps your not trained enough. If a chief calls on the radio and asks for 5 scba's to be brought inside at the top of the stairs (trust me I couldn't believe my ears hearing it) perhaps your in the wrong business!!! We need to spend a lot of time training to help make communications issues a thing of the past.
Replies to This Discussion
-
Permalink Reply by Kevin King on
-
And do away withCODES clear speak is a far better way to make your statement understandable.Communicate brief and clear to the point.
-
Permalink Reply by Engineco913 on
-
This is where everyone taking the NIMS class and taking the test independantly would have made more sense. Them giving the option to take the test as a class together doesn't teach the fundamentals to everyone, just to the ones who stayed awake and payed attention to detail in class. NIMS states to use CLEAR LANGUAGE thats common to all on scene. If you use codes, perhaps your code for working fire means breaking and entering to the local PD. A working fire, fully involved, fire through the roof, fire on side 2 with exposure simple things like this that the average person off the street could understand. If it is a sensative issue like a drug raid (haz mat) a general Haz Mat or whatever assemble to a command post and brief the group in person rather than radio. Theres always a way. Thanks for reminding me bro
-
Permalink Reply by Joe Stoltz on
-
"If you use codes, perhaps your code for working fire means breaking and entering to the local PD."
Boy, does that hit home. Just this year we had an inter-county snafu: There was an unattended death somewhere over the county line, and our co. relayed this info to the proper county, using the appropriate 10-code. The other county sent the haz mat team to the reported haz mat incident! Not long after, they started doing away with the 10 codes.
Excellent discussion topic 513!
-
-
A basic comm. class is a great idea,but it is yet another training issue.
-
Permalink Reply by Randy Macey on
-
A program I use and it's free for the downloading is Simulator 6 @ http://www.firesimulator.com/sneak_peak.htm this program allows you to hit a couple of great training topics. One is IC as well as proper placement of trucks and
of course use of radios. You drive around your area, take pictures of buildings that
you think would be your nightmare for a fire. Upload it to the program and start to add smoke and flames. You can set this up for size up and then each slide show how the fire is growing. Adding different colour smoke to show the types of different hazards as well as arcks from hydro as well. But your dead on that more training is required and less radio chat used. Some calls we have made note that it might be better to split the channels so that we are not all on one channel. But this is only for those that have the feature. But recommend this program for training, which helps see what you dealing with as well where the mistake are. Great also for pre-planning.
Mace
-
Permalink Reply by Jason Brooks on
-
Voice amplifiers are a great help as well. Our pump operators wear headsets. If someone calls over the air multiple times and is told to repeat, usually the pump operator can make it out due to the lack of background noise.
-
Permalink Reply by turk182 on
-
We used to run on 33.70 and did away with it about 13 years ago went to 911 system with 800 mhz when we went to new system we did away with our ten codes and went to using plain language we also have ops channels assigned and a local channel that we send all nonessential traffic through works pretty decent but still get the useless chatter. i think the communication class would be a good idea.
-
-
Most departments here have the Main fire channel (shared by most the local companies, Fireground channels, and a talk around channel. The dispatcher doesn't monitor (or so they say) the talk around channels, but radio ettiquite is required reguardless. Even with more channels, if they don;t know how to properly use a radio it makes for a mess.
-
-
Again, learning by listening to other f.d.'s within scanner range you would be amazed at what you can hear. Another subject worth revisiting until we all get it correct.
-
Permalink Reply by mike wright on
-
Here we use the radio on open channel to talk to central. After we get on scene we go to a fire ground channel. We are to only talk to central when we are getting in route, size up, mutual aid request, and a scene update. After that we are on fire ground and only officers have radios. Most of the time we dont use them anyway. When we do use them it is short and sweet and to the point. We get a radio class once a year to refresh us on how to properly use them. This way the guys that dont use one very often get a chance to practice. We have communication problems all over the globe. The range from being on the right channell to being able to hear the team in the structure.
-
-
Alan the dropping fo the 10 codes is all part of the NIMS setup of beinging all fire departments on a common terminology base. It is pretty imperrative because your 10-55 (mva) could be someone elses 10-55 (CO call, building fire etc) I know in some cases the county will own the radio systems, and if this is correct they can offer training classes. If your department owns the radio's, it just takes some reading of the owners manuals, and a complete understanding to be able to assemble a training. Once you have a clear understanding of how the radio's work, putting the radio's all on the same setup will assist in less confusion. (every radio is programmed identical) For practice in radio communications, motorola 2 way radio's (the kind you take hunting, or for trail walking) work awesome. They are low cost and keep all traffic for training off the air. If you get folks comfortable using them (knowing what to say, and how to transmit in a nice even keeled voice) when they are responding to a call they are more likely to be ok talking on the portables and truck radios. We have a deputy chief in the area who conducted a training using this and his department had a building fire the next day. I would have sworn that the department had Ben Stein (the clear eyes commercial guy one flat monotone voice like eeyore) for drivers so in essence the training was successful. Often times in some people's haste to not screw up while talking they ramble and end up screwing up. Take a deep breath and then let what you have flow in short concise sentences to complete your thought. Hope this helps.
-
Permalink Reply by Robert Owens on
-
When ever you give or respond to transmissions over the radio it should follow either one of these 2 acronyms
C:Conditions
P:Progress
R:Resources
C: Conditions
A:Actions
N:Needs
If you keep it to that you radio traffic will be pertinent and not filled with extras. Also try the one transmission method. Example:
Current: Engine 6A to command
Command go ahead Engine 6A
Command Engine 6A has water on the fire
New way: Engine 6A to command water on the fire
Command Copies
I especially hate 3 radio transmissions when people are marking in service Just identify yourself and say inservice it is so much easier.
© 2024 Created by Firefighter Nation WebChief.
Powered by
