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.

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Permalink Reply by Dan Stratton on February 19, 2009 at 8:53pm

What about cell phones? Such carriers as Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel offer the Push to Talk on the phones which acts as a radio more or less. You can even walkie talkie an entire group at once. Is this something that FFs use in the field?

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Permalink Reply by C. R. Vaughan on February 19, 2009 at 9:11pm

I serve a small town fire department as chief and respond into the county as a battalion chief (5 agencies – Two Batt. Chiefs). We are in a position where two of the departments do not respond, but the other three are top notch organizations. When I started some 15 years ago, there were no portable radios and no one thought that they were needed. Thankfully, no one was injured or killed. After my first year I purchased my own mobile, and portable for use as an EMT and FF with my department. Over the next few years grants were scarce, but I searched high and low and found a little money for this item. Many times I would walk into city council meetings and state that we needed this and that for safety reasons and would be told, by people who know nothing of the fire service, that this would lead to too much chatter on the radio. Just over eight years ago I got elected to the council and have worked tirelessly through grants and local funds to bring every member a portable and new apparatus for each house. As the chief… There is no reason for me not to have a radio on every member on every call. If they abuse the radio then I should do my job and my company officers should do theirs to assure adherence to the SOP and train the members correctly in the use of the radio. I read comments where some chiefs said that cell phones should be used to contact dispatch and others. I believe that is completely wrong for safety reasons and the simple fact that you choke dispatch in an emergency with several members calling to ask the same question. Teach the radio and firefighting one skills at the same time. Make a member pass the rookie class and radio class before they are issued a radio. Don’t be afraid to take it away when they screw up and restrict their ability.

In our area we are very rural and cover a large amount of area. Most of our medical emergencies are ran by volunteers in their POV’s. This means that we must have radios on our members. Sure, we have had trouble in the past, but fix the trouble when it arises, don’t sacrifice the safety of all members due to a few that don’t know how to handle the radio. I have found that those that abuse the radio can’t be trusted in other areas of the department either. Until they can learn to use something as basic as a radio they need not be attempting to use some of the other equipment on the scene.

Just this past year I hit a major grant that is putting dual mode APCO 25/Analog infrastructure in place and new portable and handheld equipment for 60% of the members. The money is there and simply must be asked for in a compelling fashion.

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Permalink Reply by David Martinez on February 19, 2009 at 9:13pm

I agree that radio control is important... but your basically saying your line people are not worth having a radio. It seems to me that your saying lets keep control at the cost of individual safety and loose the chance to get valuable info.

I have been on small and large departments. In both EVERYONE had two eyes and could potentially have VERY important info for an IC and others to know. That info has to flow quickly, and not depend on running to find an officer with a radio.

To me this reasoning screams of lack of training... in radio etiquette and simple basic communications training, NIMS, ICS, and just simple risk analysis. If your people had the proper training in these areas they would know when to key their radios or not.

Your second issue on money... Well I too have had to contend with small budgets but you can ALWAYS find money. Be it pancakes, fill the boot, applying for grants, buying used, taking hand me downs from police or sheriffs offices (who update more than us) and by going to our governing bodies and saying we need more for safety sake.

5 radios to work your fires .... thats 1 in 5 that gets one... wow..

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Permalink Reply by Ryan Cullen on February 19, 2009 at 9:19pm

The driver has 2 portables available incase punping on 2 different channels the officer has a hi n low band portable to choose from, and there are 2 portables in the back. Our rig is a 10 man cab the way we look at it is the driver and 2 officers are the only ones who need them

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Permalink Reply by Brad on February 19, 2009 at 9:22pm

I am from a department in Indiana where we have 110 firefighters. We all had our own radios, but they were Johnson radios and they are JUNK. He had so many problems with them that we had to give them all back and they issued each position on the trucks a radio. So we all still have a radio when we work. FYI don't buy Johnson.

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Permalink Reply by bert johnston on February 19, 2009 at 9:22pm

I work full time at Tuscumbia Fire and Rescue in north Alabama. Most of us at TFD have our own radios, plus there is two handheld radios on the trucks.

FF/EMT Johnston

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Permalink Reply by John Puckett on February 19, 2009 at 9:34pm

Were a small city with 2 full time 20 vol. We have a radio for each Fireman and a mobile in every app.

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Permalink Reply by Bill Rushford on February 19, 2009 at 9:53pm

for my department only the officers and truck engineers have radios. we use staging to arrange work groups coordinatd with an officer, otherwise you talk face to face

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Permalink Reply by Judd on February 19, 2009 at 9:58pm

We are a small Rural Volunteer Department. We have about 25 active members. All of our equipment (Trucks to radio's) are handee down form the county fire department (The City Guy's). Half of the radio's we do have,DO NOT WORK. We are constantly asking County to replace them, They say they do not have enough money in the budget to get us any. All the grants and funds that are given to the fire departments are put in to a general fund. The CITY GUYS draw off the fund first and the rural get squat.
Or Department had on-board computers donated by a Federal Government Agency, for all of our rigs. For the mutual aid we give them and vise versa. County has taken them and put them and put them in their CITY units.

We have stressed to the county about our radio situation over and over. The only option we have is for our department to buy our own. And we do not have the funds or the resorces to do so.

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Permalink Reply by David Martinez on February 19, 2009 at 10:03pm

Sounds like you have some issues confused. Grants have to have some type of reciepts of being used as intended. Also, if your dept is applying for the grant... why hand over the $...?

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Permalink Reply by Willie Townsend on February 19, 2009 at 10:18pm

At our department, we were giving our own portables. This is great that way u don't have to depend on the another person radio. We do have a few of our new guys that don't have one yet but they are working on it. We also were issued our own face mask.