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July 2000 - from someone in Houston
Part 1
Question - Hi. I am very interested in fire radio systems. Could you tell me what radio channel you usually switch to when you have a working fire in Houston? I know that you are usually on Channel A1 for normal ops. And you go to Channel A4 when you want to talk to an ambulance. Do you go to some other channel if you have a working fire? Take care - Peter S near Boston
Answer - There has been some change in the assignment of channels recently. A1 is used for station alerting only. Any fire unit that is not on in the station will monitor A2 and it is not uncommon for both channels to be used when dispatching units. Most routine communication on the fire side will occur on A2. If there is a larger incident, or one that will require a large ammount of radio traffic, a special monitored channel will be assigned, usually A3 or A4. A6 is used to dispatch ambulances and fire apparatus to medical calls. Once the unit has been dispatched, they will switch to A5 for regular communication. The downside is that ambulances that are not in the station will usually have to monitor both A5 and A6 to be able to hear what is going on. If a first responder to a medical call wishes to talk to the ambulance, or any other unit on the ambulance side, then they will have to request a channel through the dispatcher, usually A7 or A8.
Needless to say, the radio gets very busy at times. Another option, and one usually taken during High Rise Incidents, will be to go to D3. This is nothing more than the simplex version of A3, but the advantage is that te dispatcher is not usually bothered by all the fireground traffic.
The last band is the "B" band. This is used by ambulances to talk to medical control. In the old days A7 was monitored by medical control and you may have heard an ambulance being told to " come up on D-Delta" which was B4. The reason for this is that the old radios in the back of the ambulance only had the letters A-H, instead of B1 - B8. Now units will go to B1 and then request a channel.
Confused yet?? Any other questions, just drop me a line.
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Part 2
Question - Thanks - I think I have it figured out - the only part that confuses me is where you say that A6 is used to dipatch fire + ambos to EMS calls. So for this to happen, if the fire unit is out of the station, the dispatcher on A2 has to tell the unit to switch to A6 to get dispatched to a EMS call. Correct?
Answer - Exactly. The dispatcher will call a fire unit on A2 and tell them to switch to A6 for an assignment.
Question - To recap -
A1 - Station Alerting (Fire + Ambos) A2 - "home" channel for fire units A3 - large incidents A4 - large incidents A5 - responding to and operating at EMS calls A6 - dispatch of EMS calls for units on the road - "home" channel for EMS units A7 - first responder to ambos A8 - first responder to ambos
Answer - It is not uncommon for Ambulances to be dispatched from the house on A6, but it just depends on who is on the Mic and how busy the other channels are.
Question - If a fire unit is returning to the station from a call, they will be found on A2. If an EMS unit is returning to the station from a hospital or from a call, they will be found on A6. Right?
Answer - Correct
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June 2001
There was a post on the HoustonScan list a month or so ago saying that Highland s was using 154.31 out - 153.89 in completely opposite of a Houston Fd repeater that was operating on 153.89 out and 154.31 in - or something like that.
Date: Fri, Jun 1, 2001, 10:50pm (EDT+4) To: [email protected] Subject: [HoustonScan] Re: Houston Fire Department Ax Channel Designations Reply�to: [email protected]
Welcome.� I'm� another old newbie but one who'e been monitoring HFD since they had only one frequency.� Here's the current picture as I understand it. The frequencies you mentioned are non-trunked.� The A series are duplex.
� 453.425 A-1 Dispatch-Stations.� Often you will hear both Fire and Ems
453.500 A-2 Dispatch to mobiles for fires, sometimes EMS.� Also used for mobile to mobile on simple incidents when a tac channel is not used.
453.675 A-3 Often used as a fire tac channel
453.950 A-4 Another tac or backup channel, listed in one source as used by arson division.
453.450 A-5 Fire tac or backup.� A-4,5 may have some other uses I am not aware of.
462.950 A-6 Ambulance dispatch
462.975 A-7 Ambulance tac or operations
���� B series: ambulance communication with Medical Center.
D-1 thru D-8 are the "direct" channels.� They operate on the frequencies corresponding to the A frequencies.� They are thus on the repeater output frequencies so don't "hit" the repeater and thus are used for local fireground communication often on walkie talkies.
���� In case you haven't found it, Myles Barkman has put together a great site for local frequencies (see below)� He gives the repeater input frequencies, PL's etc. We are consistent on the uses of the main channels, A-1,2, 6 - there may be some variation on the use of other channels and he may be more up to date than I am.� I have a list which includes some "C" frequencies, a designation which I don't find on Myles' list.� I haven't gotten around ot going through those freq by freq and figuring it out.� Good listening
--- In HoustonScan@y..., hwade1@h... wrote: OK, I'm a newbie but a very old newbie. I like to participate in these groups by always trying to give something back. However, I just came across this question without anything to initially contibute. The Houston FD is assigning Ax alternate frequencies to working fires. I went back through all of my old data, bought a new Police Call, and did a couple of searches but can't find what these are tied to. I heard A3 for a working fire earlier this week and A4 or A5, don't recall since I was driving, for an assist at Bush on a runway today. I assume these are non-trunked freqs but don't have a clue.
For the latest information on Houston area scanning see: http://www.clarc.org/~kg5ai/freqs/freqs.html - (backup site http://w5ac.tamu.edu/~kg5ai)
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From ScanHouston
Date:� Wed�Oct�24,�2001� 2:52 am Subject:� Re: Question about Houston dispatching--- In HoustonScan@y..., rfdillon@h... wrote: What, may I ask, is A5? All these frequencies are so confusing!
Any help is GREATLY appreciated, TIA - It seems, lately, that A5, normally a tac/ems-supervisor channel, is also being used occasionally as a Dispatch Channel.
From Posting Number 1419 of the Archives:
This is what I have been hearing lately: All HFD frequencies use PL 127.3
Repeater Channels A01 453.4250 458.4250 KUQ798 Station Dispatch A02 453.5000 458.5000 KUQ798 Apparatus Dispatch A03 453.6750 458.6750 KUQ798 Assigned by Dispatch, Usually Amb-Truck/MultiAlarm A04 453.9500 458.9500 KUQ798 Assigned by Dispatch, Usually Amb-Truck/Arson/MultiAlarm A05 460.5750 465.5750 KUQ798 Supervisor / EMS / MultiAlarm alternate* A06 462.9500 467.9500 KUQ798 Ambulance Dispatch** A07 462.9750 467.9750 KUQ798 Medical Center** A08 460.6250 465.6250 KUQ798 Supervisor / EMS / MultiAlarm alternate*
Med Channels (EMS/Hospital Comms) Some have recently become repeated B01 463.0000 468.0000 B02 463.0250 468.0250 B03 463.0500 468.0500 B04 463.0750 468.0750 B05 463.1000 468.1000 B06 463.1250 468.1250 B07 463.1500 468.1500 B08 463.1750 468.1750
Cannot confirm if this plan is still in effect C01 460.5250 465.5250 Note: This is HPD B-3 w/PL123.0 C02 460.5500 465.5500 Note: This is HPD South Central Patrol w/PL123.0 C03 460.5750 465.5750 C04 460.6250 465.6250 C05 460.5750 C06 460.5750 C07 460.5750 C08 460.5750
Direct Channels (Probably used at multi-alarms for on-scene communications. Someone please advise if this is correct.) D01 453.4250 453.4250 D02 453.5000 453.5000 D03 453.6750 453.6750 D04 453.9500 453.9500 D05 460.5750 460.5750 D06 462.9500 462.9500 D07 462.9750 462.9750 D08 460.6250 460.6250
Notes: * Used when there are several multi alarm incidents. Assigned by the Dispatcher ** 462.9500 and 462.9750 are Medical Frequencies and have been heard (in the past, but not lately) on Pearland and other area EMS agencies and Life Flight.
Just Program the 453, 460, and 462 frequencies. Don't worry about the repeater input frequencies... 458, 465, and 467.
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File linked - 30Nov00
Updated - 01 June 2001 - 28 Sept 2002
File Created - 30July00