just thinking out loud
Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD) radio system - future
LAFD has 18 channels at 800 now - plus maybe the 5 ITac freqs - I dont know how good their coverage is on the ITacs
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If LAFD moves to UHF - I was thinking they could set up the channels this way - assuming they will stay at 18 to 20 channels.
LAX Ops - 1 repeater at the airport
Emergency trigger channel - emergency buttons
Downtown Fire
Downtown EMS
Harbor Fire & EMS
Valley Fire
Valley EMS
All of those channels would be "home channels" - except for the Emergency Trigger Channel. By "home channel" I mean that all units in the Harbor area would set their radio to the "Harbor Fire & EMS" channel at the beginning of their shift, and stay there until told to move to another channel.
The rest of the channels (approx 11 extra / spare channels) would be for onscene comms or training or chit chat as required
The spare channels could be used like this :
For a typical 2 company EMS call - - "OCD from Eng 101, Code 1" "OCD to Rescue 101, call Eng 101 on (a spare channel)" - (this is Engine 101 requesting a clear channel to talk to Rescue 101)
- "All units responding with Eng 98 switch to (a extra channel)" - for a typical building fire or car crash
- "All units NOT operating with Eng 105 switch to (a spare channel)" - a major incident that takes 30% to 50% of the units on the home freq - for example, reports of a major plane crash or building fire or brush fire
[March 31 2014 - come to think of it - the difference between "switch to Channel X" and "NOT switch to Channel X" might have to be very carefully worded]
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Alternately - maybe this Channel layout would work -
Division 1 Fire
Division 1 EMS
Div 2 Fire
Div 2 EMS
Div 3 Fire
Div 3 EMS
Emergency Trigger
This plan is very flexible and minimizes the need to for multiple radios to hop back and forth on various channels all day long.
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Slightly updated - Oct 13 2013 - substituted (a spare channel) for (Ch 12 or Ch 20 or whatever)
Slightly updated - March 31 2014