Interoperability?

[raricciuti]

Just curious - how many folks are "technically" interoperable (in other words, they're all on the same radio band and type of system) with their neighboring departments - meaning that they COULD talk to the "other" folks, such as other FD's, PD units, EMS, or whatever; but because of personalities, they don't.

In Allegheny County, PA, there are 115 municipalities, with 80+ EMS agencies, 130 police departments, and 225+ fire departments. Nearly all are on VHF high band or UHF, non-trunked systems. In theory, all the agencies using UHF could talk to each other, and all the agencies on VHF could talk to each other. But the reality is, most operate in little "cliques", only talking (and working) with a small, select group of neighbors.

Some folks insist an 800 trunked system is the best (or only) solution to interoperability problems. I don't think that a different (read: very expensive and complex) radio system is going to get everyone feeling warm-n-fuzzy enough to work together on anything.

Anyone else finding that "interoperability" is a people problem, not a hardware problem? What do you think?

[hwoods]

First, Thanks for bringing this important topic up for discussion. I am (among a few dozen other things) the Chairman of the Legislative Committee of the Maryland Fire Chief's Association. As such, I've been involved with work on interoperability issues for years, particullarly at the Federal level. Some years back, we started work on the "Consensus Plan", so named as it resulted from the work of a wide range of Public Safety Professionals, Paid and Volunteer, to address the problem of interference in the 800 Mhz band. After years of lobbying and political arm twisting, most opposition to this plan disappeared, and it was adopted by the FCC, thus clearing the way to move cell phones to one area, and Public safety Communications to another area, ending the interference problem.

But that is only the beginning. As you have so aptly put it, people, not hardware, is the mountain to climb to gain acceptance for true interoperability to be created and used. There is a lot more opposition to interoperability out there than most people realize. Anyone and everyone who has turf to guard will look at the possibility of having a radio that lets someone else's agency talk to his people as a threat to his turf. Personally, although I recognize the limits and pitfalls of interoperability, and feel that they are managable, there are a few at the other end of the street who want every agency on earth on the same channel. THAT would kill any benefit that otherwise would arise from implementing such a system. Although I would like my command post to be able to communicate with mutual aid units coming from a couple of Counties away, my guys on the Engine crew do not need to talk to the Dog Catcher's office in the next state, as some want us to be able to do.

With that said, Equipment is not that big of a problem. You can trunk almost any frequency range, not just 800 Mhz. I predict that hardware problems of the future will continue to be small, compared to the people problems, especially in the smallker departments.

[Firetacoma1]

Our county has roughly 50 different agencies dispathed from a central dispatch center (public). All fire, rescue, and support agencies are dispatched on the same channel and there are 5 tac frequencies in addition for the FERN frequencies and the INOP frequencies programmed into (theoretically) every radio in the county. On large incidents (mostly wildland here) everyone has the channels to effectivly talk between departments. I've heard rumors that a digital trunked system is in the works, but those rumors have been around for a while. With the mountainous terrain in the western section of our county (eastern portion of our county is the plains... western edge is the continental divide) I have serious doubts that 800mhz is going to come here... at least I hope not!

[BVFD1983]

Our county is currently looking at going high band.

Cost: $30,000,000 +

I am all for it seeing how we can't hardly talk from one side of town to the other (3 miles at most.)

[mcaldwell]

We now have the technical ability to work on combined frequencies, but it is not a seamless practice quite yet.

Each FD has the other mutual aid FD's programmed into their mobiles and most portables, and the Police and Ambulance can either swap to our frequency, or we can all assemble on one common simplex frequency. We are in the process of purchasing a regional repeater that will provide a tactical frequency accessible to all Emergency Services in the region. We do not yet have adequate access to public utilities in every region, so that is in the works as well.

We have just recently held a full-scale emergency exercise to test our interoperability, and while it went well, it did reveal a few problems with cross-departmental communications. Particularly how to effectively coordinate a command net, and multiple tactical nets with more than 2-3 resources or agencies on scene.

I think the next step for us is consolidating our SOG's to define how we will use the available channels.

[RadRob]

Communications in our area is a major problem. We are dispatched through the county. Towns that are small and close to us are also on the county's system. We can talk fine. However, to the west of us is a bigger town with their own system, which we can't talk to unless we set up a patch. To the south of us is another town with their own county radio system (we are on the border of the county, and they are just across the border in their own county). Ambulances can come to our channel, or we can use the county's "fire ops" channel (which gets congested at times), but we can't go to theirs. We also can't talk to the local police on our radios. Sheriff's can come to our channel, but we don't have their's. There are talks of ugrading our 800mhz system, but they have been saying that for years now. We'll see.

[nmfire]

We are slowing bringing ourselves into the new millenium with this. Up until maybe 4 years ago, nobody really thought much of it. Not much effort was made to remedy it by reprogramming or planning channel lineups. I think a big part of that was the "technical intimidation" factor. The powers that be don't have the technical background to even know it can be done better let alone how. I took over radio a few years ago and being the geek that I am, I started trying to push things. Since I had the technical background, I started making things happen. I spent the time reprogramming all our low band (46mhz) radios with every surrounding town for 30 miles. We started upgrading to UHF portables and vehicle repeaters. All the portables had all our surrounding towns that are already UHF. Between the UHF portables and vehicle repeaters to low band, there is nobody we can't talk to and nobody that can't talk to us withing a reasonable distance. Everyone is either low band or UHF and we have both.

In the event of some gargantuan disaster like if a loaded 747 did a nose dive into the fuel depot in the city, there are interop channels. The CT "Statewide Tactical On-Scene Channels" are the save-the-world plan for that. There are simplex channels for each region and a field deployable cross-link. That would take a UHF, VHF, and 800 channel and link them all together as one. Lets face it, we can't ALL be on the same band in the whole state. This thing will in theory let people work together. The thing is, departments need to have radio capable of narrowband and actually have the channels programmed in. That is a big challenge.

[Bones42]

Not really finding a need for everyone to be able to talk to everyone. When we respond mutual aid, we send our ranking officer to the command post. He is responsible for assigning tasks to our crews once the IC gives him direction. My teams don't need to be talking directly with the IC, they talk to our "command" who is standing next to and relays what is necessary to the IC.

I've dealt, in the past, with multiple towns/fd's on the same channel, it was a nightmare and I hope to God it never comes back.

[kayakking]

Yes and no...we border Dallas, TX on one side and while our radios don't work with theirs, some of our border stations carry Dallas radios also...and we have this same situation with a suburb on our west side whom we run automatic assistance with. They have our radios and we have theirs because our radios are not compatible. Most of the other cities around us we can communicate with...we can also communicate with our PD, with Careflight, and with our medical control using our regular radio.

[nmfire]

Yea, we are lucky in that respect. Everyone around us is either low band or UHF. The only future upgrades and changes in the works are for towns with low band moving up to UHF. This works out great for us because we can talk to both with one radio. Nobody around here has VHF and nobody around here has any trunking or 800Mhz systems. If they did, it would present a problem.

[NonSurfinCaFF]

California has several state mutual aid frequencies, which most departments use as needed. Many departments also have nearby tactical and command channels in their radios for use during mutual aid. For fairly localized auto aid or mutual aid usually the incident will be run on the jurisdictions frequencies. If it is a major incident that is likely to involve resources from many agencies with some further away and unlikely to have the locals frequencies these typically get run on one of the states mutual aid freqs.

[Dave1983]

Its a people problem, and it doesnt stop with radio systems.

Weve had a centralized dispatch system here since the mid 1980's. All FD's (17), the police departments (20?) and Sheriff and the county ambulance sevice can all talk to each each other.

We also have state wide mutual aid channels built in and in an emergency (like a huricane) can talk to other FDs & EMS agencies from around the state.

But do we still have interoperability problems? Heck yes, but it has nothing to do with radios. It comes from the individual FDs in the county being responsible for their own "cards", and with that comes the turf battles.

We are supposed to operate under a closest unit response, closest unit regardless of juristiction, gets dispatched. NOT. The only time this happens os for EMS calls, as the county (who controls EMS money) mandates it.

So what we have is, for example, or engine at our HQ station runs a large section of another FDs EMS area as its the closest ALS unit. But, in this same area, it doesnt run fire calls, even though its also the closest fire unit. This other FD runs an engine half way across their city insteed.

So you see, even though you fix your radios, your battle may just be starting.