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Portable Radios- One For Each Crew Member or Do You Have to Share Them?
Several months ago, my F.D. updated our portable radios so that each seating position had it's own portable radio. We were able to do this due to a grant. This ensures that each crew member on that rig has his/her own radio. This has greatly improved safety and communication. I was just wondering what other F.D's, (from big city to small town) are doing.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Scott Kleinschmidt on
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"Not trying to paint with too broad a brush, but too many people tend overuse or abuse radio privileges (this is not a right). So I gotta have some control over who is on a radio"
Thats not a radio issue.......... thats a training issue. As a incident commander I would hope and pray all my people have radios and if they see something important report it. This old school " the officer is the only one intelligiant enough to relay info" and have radio disapline has to go.
Chief you might not have split your crews...........but what do you think happened once they were inside and working.
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Permalink Reply by roy yoder on
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you may be an untrained dept. if you start your transmission with BREAKER BREAKER. the fire dept is just like other business, and that is you have to have training and sop's. if you don't you have no control and if you have no control what good is anything including radios? i am asst. chief of a rural dept. and paid on a combo dept. we have a lot of pagers and some radios. we have picked up some radios with grants and pancakes but still are short. a lot of the men are buying thier own and then the dept. will do repairs and batteries so they stay working. excuse me it is the firefighters assoc. that does the repair and batteries. what is the defination of communication. you can't do it without radio's
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Permalink Reply by Jacob Fouts on
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For my department it depends on the rig.......most of the district is volunteer, however on the Career staff rigs, we have radios for the entire crew, but on the volunteer rigs we have a radio for the officer and thats it. Our operators plug in their headsets to the pump panel. More than one time on an incident we have had to take extra time to the end of a driveway to talk to the water supply guys or such. Its wasting valuable time and creating an unsafe environment. There are alot of grants out there that will help departments get enough radios. I wish they would look at it.
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Permalink Reply by Richard Alden on
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I'm from a very small volunteer department serving a population of around a 1,000 residents. When I first started we had a total of 6 portables on the fire department however our ambulance service equiped all their members with a portable. Communications was great for the ambulance in knowing exactly how many personel was responding to a call, as well as who was going to the station and who was straight going to the scene. Those responding were able to get directions much easier if they weren't familiar with the area. The fire department on the other hand only equiped the Chief and the assistant chief with a radio and the other 4 went on the trucks. On any given call it was impossible to know how many were responding. Because of this we nenver knew if there was going to be a need for mutual aid. Through grants and fund raising we were able to purchase an additional 16 portables to equip all of our primary firefighters. Now with our firefighters spread out across the district, we generally have a good idea of the severity of a call long before anybody even reaches the station. Personel responding directly to a scene can do a size-up much faster and can make the call for what equipment is needed. Equiping everybody with a portable makes imformation sharing much more easier!!!
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Permalink Reply by Paul Young on
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I have a question about the other members not turning their radios on during operations. Teach proper radio dicipline. Then, in my opinion is all members on the operation have to ability to hear all of the orders given, and hear potential problems that an officer may miss. Just a though.
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Permalink Reply by Kim Stellhorn on
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It is good to hear from alot of theses post that they start out with "I am from a small department and we provide rados for all our members or we have a radio in every spot of our apparatus. Basically departments can afford what ever they believe is important. Radio's today are just like SCBA's were some 25-30 years ago. Intially departmemts claimed they could not afford them, but now SCBA's are as common as gloves and helmets. When I first joined 38 years ago our department had just received our first 2 SCBA's, we had no , I repeat no radio's what so ever. We got 2 mobiles and 1 base station 6 months later. When some of our officers purchased their own mobile radio's 6 years later it almost caused a riot. Since that time I have purchased some 1/2 doz mobile or portables on my own. Like I said before, If your departments interested in new shiny play toys or 20,000-30,000 personal officer vehicles instead of FF safety you never will be able to afford portable radios, or PAR devices, etc etc
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Permalink Reply by Ryan Angel on
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Im a member of a small town vol.fire dept. we all have portable radios we have 27 members and everyone has a portable all the officers from chief to trainning officer also are issued moble radios. Every engine has a moble and a portable on it. This makes everything easier.
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Permalink Reply by paul strops on
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I am the asst. chief of a volunteer fire department with about 32 members, and every one of my firefighters has their own radio. this day and time you can buy a radio for the same price as a pager so to all the officers out their, their is no reason each member on your department doesn't have a radio! and sending a crew in with out a radio period that's just stupid! if you are an office on a fire department volunteer or paid then you are responsible for your firefighters and if they go in without a radio and get injured or worse then it is your fault and nobody else their are to many grants out there not to have the equipment you need to run a department!!!!
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Permalink Reply by Nathan Whoric on
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our line officers(except lts) all have their own radios that they keep with them at all times. i believe that 2 of our stations have a bank of 8 radios each and our 3rd has 4 radios(smallest station and most of the time only 2-3 respond from there). the only bad thing is that they are not in the trucks yet. im normally catching the truck at the end of the pad or down the street so i dont have one but if its a big call, ie structure fire or major mva, one of the guys grabs an extra one. hopefully when they get the computer systems in out trucks, they people the radio banks in the trucks to
stay safe yall
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Permalink Reply by Chuck Wright on
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i agree every firefighter needs his/her own radio
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Permalink Reply by Rob M on
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I am in a large combination system and we have assigned portables to the minimum staffing positions of our suppression and EMS units. That means if you as a volunteer upstaff a unit as the 3rd on an EMS unit, the 5th on the Engine, or the 4th on any other unit, you are SOL when it comes to portables. This is an item of concern to myself and many others in the department as we routinely as the upstaff person return to the unit on EMS units for supplies. If for some reason we are attacked (we work some high-crime areas), struck by a vehicle, or in any other way are distressed, we have no way to communicate with our crew or the dispatcher. During fireground operations, everyone on the interior should have a portable as they can become separated from their crew and need immediate assistance. While the PASS device can alert people to the downed firefighter's need for help, the firefighter cannot always verbally alert crews to his situation, be it shouting for help, hoping other interior crews can hear him/her (fat chance, right?), or communicating a MAYDAY over the radio verbally, or by utilizing the Emergency Button that our radios have. In my mind, if you are riding, you should have a portable, period, end of subject. It is a matter of safety, not a matter of wanting to look important, or walk around the station trying to squirrel by listening to other channels (districts, battalions, the PD, or mutual aid channels). The lack of everyone having portables could result in huge lawsuits after LODDs or injuries sustained in the line of duty. A couple thousand dollars (for the portables we use), versus millions for a wrongful death suit.
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Permalink Reply by Shareef Abdu Nur on
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We do the exact same thing that you do with each seat having it's own radio. In my opinion, this is the safest mode of operation. I know of one fairly busy FD, that rides 3 on engines and 4 on trucks and rescue companies and they only allow the officers to have radios. So, we really need to appreciate what we do have and pray for those brothers that don't have it as well.
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