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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 Bull on
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I come from a very small and rural area which is Volunteer. Only 7 of us have radios, we actually wear them were ever we go, there are pagers also. The rest of the guys have pagers. We want to get more for others, but most dont want one. We have 4 old radios that we keep in our equipment van for those that want or need them on scene. The 7 of us that have them full time are officers, and show up 99% of the time. We like the radios better than the pagers because they actually work, have had alot of problems with pagers. And the fact is, the more radios you have, the more communication you have.
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Permalink Reply by Joe Stoltz on
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We're a small rural VFD and a couple of years ago we were granted funds to purchase new portable radios. We bought one for each SCBA plus one for each truck cab. Now, we have one for each interior FF, plus all line officers, and fire police members have portables.
Prior to this, the county had expanded the number of available channels to 8, and we were still using 2, 4 and 6 channel radios.
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Permalink Reply by Dre on
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We are pretty big, and unfortunately, only the person riding officer carries radio. We HATE this policy, and are afraid it's going to take someone's death to change the policy. It is not a matter of not enough money. Some of us harp on this, becuz the crew is split up all the time, people get lost, split up regularly, and we have no way to activate RIT besides setting off our PASS device, and hoping/praying someone hears it. Oh, and that our officer with the radio isn't the one that goes down that we need to call for help.
Our ffs want one in apparatus for each position.
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Permalink Reply by Andy Entwistle on
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Same deal as 'Dre' - we don't have enough portables for each FF. Fortunately with mutual aid to any structure fire you are usually near someone who has a radio on the command channel but the simple fact is that sometimes you are on the nozzle crew with no radio and that's the way it goes.
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Permalink Reply by Mary Ellen Shea on
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same situation as most others; small-ish department (48 members, 34 active) with a budget so small you'd need the Hubble Telescope to find it ...
Every responding apparatus has one radio per officer. Everyone else has pagers, and we keep the channels open to stay updated listening to communication between our department and Fire Control.
Not exactly the ideal scenario, is it?
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Permalink Reply by PFC Harmon on
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We are a very small vol. dept. and all our officers have county radios, all our trucks have mobile radios in them. The rest of us have to buy them if we want them. Wich most of us did because our moto pagers dont work right half of the time.
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Permalink Reply by Tim Meckler # 575 on
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my career department we all have radios but in my vollie house its the senior person on the rig. i have brought this up to the founding fathers that this is a safety issue and they are now in the process of buying radios for every seat on every rig. i told them what if the person with the radio goes down how can i / other person with them call for a may day, this hit home and now its in the works. thank god we have people that listen.
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Permalink Reply by Brian Dumser on
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That's what I wish we'd done. I live in the same town that I work in and it would be nice to have a radio when I stumble onto an MVA or something. I could radio directly to dispatch instead of dialing 911 from my cell phone and getting routed through God knows where!
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put your dispatchs phone number in your cell? Every firefighter should be able to call their dispatch center direct
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Permalink Reply by Brian Dill on
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Currently we have a radio for each officer, and a few older ones in trucks. We got a federal grant last year and are currently in the process of upgrading our system. We will have radios for each riding position on the trucks and each officer.
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Excellent idea Tim. I can't believe I didn't think of that sooner. It's in my cell now. Stay safe!
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Permalink Reply by Allen Wahlstrom on
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WTF!
You could not pay me enough money to go in a structure fire without my own radio.
I don't care how big or small a department is, (I've worked on large career departments and small rural volunteer departments) there is money for the things that members want.
Instead of buying hte newest light bar for your Chiefs vehicle, keep using that 3 year old light bar that dont have the newest strobe sequence and buy radios!
Do a fund raiser for radios, tell the community what it is for and go buy them.
Catfish Dinner, Steak Dinner, Pancake Breakfast, Crab Boil...feed them at the fire house, show them what the department needs and go get it!
This is 2008! How can a Chief Officer send a crew in with 1 radio, and then allow them to be split up. This is not just stupid it is potentially criminal.
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