"....got six or seven busy signals and weren't able to get through..."

I'm just looking for clarification here.

In an article in Firehouse.com, I was reading about a firefighter in Ohio partially falling through a roof, and was stopped in my tracks after reading this:

"We observed them on the roof . . . we were questioning them being up there based on the fire conditions," he told the news station. "As we tried to get through, we got six or seven busy signals and we weren't able to tell them to get off the roof and the gentleman disappeared. It was one of those deals where we watched it and we really couldn't do anything."

I'm not at all familiar with the ways that these firefighters operate, but what kind of communication system would explain the OIC getting busy signals while trying to radio the vent crew? Should there not be a secondary (or new primary) means of communication in place?

If anyone would kindly educate me on their means of communication as to why they were getting busy signals, I would greatly appreciate it.

Thank you in advance.

Here's a link to the story http://www.firehouse.com/news/10705528/ohio-firefighter-partially-f...

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Permalink Reply by Eric Gregory on April 25, 2012 at 5:18pm

Many radio systems operate on a first come first served basis. If another radio is transmitting you will not be able to key up until they are through. If you try your radio will give you a tone letting you know the system is busy.

I'm guessing this is what they had. The other option is to allow simultaneous transmission which can result in no one being heard.

Many systems that do prevent simultaneous transmission will have a hierarchy of authority where radios of higher importance can override lower importance. For instance a lieutenant might be able to transmit over a firefighter, a captain can transmit over a lieutenant and a chief can trasmit over a captain but most likely not the other way around.

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Permalink Reply by Derek R. on April 25, 2012 at 6:31pm

Thanks Eric

I was aware of the first come first serve basis for radio transmission, however, I was unaware of the "busy tone". That's what got me.

I was also unaware of the heirarchy of authority system. I just assumed they would have used different ops channels if it were a big enough scene, or there was too much radio traffic for the scene they had.

If I transmit the same time as someone else, one of us simply gets cut off. If we don't receive acknowedgement, we will repeat the transmission. Usually we get it the second time.

thanks for the info.