Should all members of a department have portable radio's

I am on a small department in south west Iowa. We have 25 members and cover 2.2 sqaure miles. 22 of our 25 members live in town. Only officer's can respond to the scene and everybody else goes to the station. Our chief issued a HT 1000 portable radios to all the members . My idea was to mount chargers on the wall near the trucks if it's a fire call grab a radio on your way out the door because I dont think that all members need a radio assigned to them. But he wanted everybody to take a radio home with them even though the rules he laid out says that only officers will go enroute over the radio for all calls, EMT's /paramedics for medical, and divers for water rescue. The firefighters are not allowed to talk on the main dispatch channel only our fireground channel. I also think that there is more potential for these radios to be broken or stolen just lying around somebodys house or left in a POV. Does anybody else have an opinion on this.

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Permalink Reply by Brian Dumser on November 25, 2008 at 8:55am

So what happens when there's an emergency on a scene and the only person who sees it has no radio? Food for thought. As for "rookies chatting up the radio", that's where SOP's on radio usage come in, along with disciplinary measures for those who can't follow them.

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Permalink Reply by Crystal on November 25, 2008 at 12:32pm

That is much like our departments... We all have Nexel's with the two-way walkie talkie feature. That is how much of us communicate. You can even two-way dispatch here in our county

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Permalink Reply by Patrick Marshall on November 25, 2008 at 1:15pm

Wow. I hate to sound like one of the "old" guys, but I guess I've come up to that line. (I haven't crossed YET!!) But back in the day, only the officers had radios. The interior attack was led by an officer or senior FF who had comms. I was part of a small poor station and this system worked for us. Only the people who had to talk to dispatch could. Now I work for a "better off" fire department. While respondinf to an MVA, on of the officers handed me a radio. I must have looked at him like I'd never seen one before, because he just put it in my gear pocket. Even today, not being an officer any longer, I do not grab a radio. Right or wrong, I think on this point, it is up to the department and what is written into your SOG's. What is wrong with the portables being in your unit's and pulled out when needed?

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Permalink Reply by Will Lovejoy on November 25, 2008 at 1:51pm

RADIO's, oh dear. On one of my departments that Im on, the EMT's whether they be basic, or intermediate(only leveled upto intermediate) have radios and respond to station or scene over the regional communications frequency for the 4 towns that are on that one repeater. Firefighters on that dept. only respond to station unless all trucks have left, firefighters dont give radio traffic unless they are an officer and or at the station acknowledging page and covering for another firefighter that is on duty. On the other deparment im on, officers are the only ones that are given departmental radios which are Kenwood Paging radios. I myself have my own personal radio in my POV for using at Search and Rescue affiliated things, i am on a local search and rescue teamin Central Maine. One dept. over the other is more strict on whether i talk on that radio or not. If i talk on the locals for each dept. they dont care, but regional comm channels are a differnt story. the southern dept im on use to be on a county channel with numerous repeaters on the same frequency but differnt PL tones, now the southern dept uses a private repeater that only has 4 towns including ours on it instead of 50+ towns on it. Being an EMT allows me to talk on the southern depts channel only whether it be regional comm or local gov't. the northern dept which gives Kenwood Radios to officers only allows me to talk on local gov't. I think Officers should be the only ones to talk on Regional Comm Channels and if the firefighter is an emt they should be allowed to make there own judgement on the call and the situation on whether they should be able to talk on regional comm channels. Thanks Cofusing i know but any questions comment me on my page thanks Again Brothers and Stay Safe Always. l8er

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Permalink Reply by Haston Jenkins on November 27, 2008 at 12:44am

In my VFD we all have alpha-numeric pagers,most have radios. You only get a radio if you have been went the dept. for atleast one year. having the radios for each member gives us a second means of communication. our dispatchers for the county forget to send our info to our pagers.so when they tone us out on our radios .the radios also help us with our mutual aid responses.we have 17 VFD and 1 Paid in the county. with the amount of vol. FFs in county we have alot of mutual aid respones. with the radios , we can also monitor the other VFDs. the paid dept has the county radios in their trucks for communication. radios for each of our members in beneficals for us but may not be other VFDs . its like any call VFDs go to, there are always differences. The way the radios are distributed should be done in best way for the dept. Also I work with the Paid FD too. within the past year, all members were issued their own radio. we got a new radio system. before we got our own radios,each truck had radios for 2FFs,1sgt,and the captain had his own. the only problems were that the radios would be damaged or not working and no one will admit to when it happened.so the dept figured since we got the new system that if they gave all members a radio then there would be more accountabilty on the radios.each member can take it home or just leave it at station.