Boston Area Fire Radio

Boston area fire department radio channels - October 2012

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Daydreaming about Fire Radios

With the ongoing moves to UHF, maybe it is time to revisit the Boston area fire radio scene.

1. Most communities have 1 good "Channel 1". ("Good" = portables work pretty much everywhere in the community)

2. Some communities apparently have a good "Channel 2". Such as - Chelsea, Everett, Revere, Boston - possibly Waltham and Quincy - maybe Lynn in the future.

3. The only other good repeated fire channel is Metro Red 483.3125R which reportedly has multi receiver sites - with coverage in Boston equal to Boston fire channels.

4. Additionally, there are a couple of new MetroFire channels - but I suspect that they just have 1 repeater or base site each.

5. Problem - there are approx 25 communities without a good Channel 2.

6. Possible Solutions - reuse of 483.2875 and 483.2625 - reuse of existing Channel 2s - expansion of new Metro channels - use of 453 Mhz mutual aid freqs - more channels - ????

7. Norfolk County (and possibly Plymouth County) use countywide fireground channels. The Norfolk County fireground channels seem to have very good coverage based on what I have monitored.

8. Cambridge and MassPort FDs need to transition from 800 to UHF.

9. Weymouth and Milton get their fireground channels from Norfolk County Control. (per SNE Wiki Norfolk County Fire) - [Oct 2012 - maybe also Randolph and Braintree]