Orange County California Public Safety
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Law Enforcement
County Sheriff - protects unincorporated areas and some cities
City Police Departments - patrol city streets
California Highway Patrol - patrol freeways and state highways
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Fire Service
County Fire Authority - protects unincorporated areas and several cities
City FDs - protect respective cities
Cleveland National Forest - US Forest Service wildfire units protect the Cleveland National Forest from vegetation fires - USFS Law Enforcement Officers also enforce USFS regulations on the Cleveland NF
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911 Dispatch System
911 calls are answered by either County 911, Metro 911, La Habra 911, CHP (for cell phones), Seal Beach Naval Station 911, or ???.
Police units share at 460Mhz radio system. Fire units share a 800Mhz trunked radio system.
A County Command Post provides disaster and mutual aid coordination.
1997 - North Net Fire Dispatch and Central Net Fire Dispatch merged to form the Metro Fire Dispatch Center.
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County Trunked Radio System
History - December 1999 - FDs are migrating from a analog 800TRS to a digital TRS. Police units will follow shortly.
History - ?1985 - FDs migrated from a shared 46Mhz radio system to a analog 800MHz TRS. Police units are on 460Mhz.
There was a website with all of the new talkgroups for the countywide radio system but it was pulled off the internet in ?November 1999 - but now we have some of the info here
Orange County Fire Radio System - Freqs + Talkgroups - December 1999
More TRS Info - July 2000 - from FCC website - ~20 sites at 866Mhz
A Post to alt.radio.scanner explaining the freqs and subsystems - ?June 2000
July 2000 Info - FD TRS - portable radios have 16 "zones" each with 16 slots per zone - therefore each portable radio has a minimum of 256 "channels" - each "zone" can have a mixture of trunked and nontrunked channels - the backbone system is divided into 4 "Zones"/subsystems
June 2000 Article About TRS Problems
7 July 2000 Article About TRS Problems
1999 List of Or Co Fire Talkgroups
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Metro Net Fire Dispatch - dispatches most of the cities (created in ?1997 by merger of North Fire Net Dispatch and Central Fire Net Dispatch) - utilizes the County 800TRS
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Ambulance Service - paramedics from local fire departments plus private ambulances for transport - see here - and see below
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Cleveland National Forest - provides wildland fire protection and emergency medical services within the Cleveland National Forest boundaries - 168.75R primary
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Disneyland Scanning Info - 900Mhz Trunked Radio System
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4Oct00 - I am just parking this Feb 99 info here for safekeeping -
Another thing that I forgot to mention is that more FDs here locally have taken over ambulance service from the private providers. They have always provided paramedic service, but back in the 70s entered into agreements to allow the private companies to do the transportation (so they wouldn't put them out of business). But now that so many of the little ambulance companies have been taken over and bought up by the big fish (especialy AMR - American Medical Response, which is owned by a Canadian corporation called Laidlaw), the cities are seeing that they can provide faster, more reliable service,and have the control over it, and make money too.
The trend is Paramedic Engine Companies with ALS and BLS ambos. These cities now have FD Ambulances: - Anaheim - Huntington Beach - La Habra - Newport Beach - Orange - Santa Ana - San Clemente (Orange County Fire) - Westminster (Orange County Fire)
You may also know that dispatching in Orange County changed awhile back: Self-dispatched: - La Habra - Brea - Santa Ana - Costa Mesa - Laguna Beach - Orange County Fire
Dispatched by "Metro Net" in Anaheim: - Anaheim - Fullerton - Garden Grove - Orange - Huntington Beach - Newport Beach
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Updated - 27July00 - more TRS info - 4Oct00 - Feb99 info parked - 10Oct00 - more info
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