New tactical channel plan

[TonedOut1985]

Ok, so during our dept meeting last night, one of the points that was brought up was a call we had the night before where there were multiple agencies running different fire calls, but people were still walking on top of each other a bit. Right now we have a main repeater, a second repeater for a somewhat isolated area of the county, and a tactical channel. The problem is that nobody seems to want to switch over to the tac channel. Instead they just sit on the repeater channel even when on the same fireground and operate on that. The tac channel would work perfectly fine, line of sight isn't THAT bad.

So, after my Chief mentioned he was interested in getting with the other Chiefs in the county to get the radios reprogrammed to use a stronger tac channel plan, I volunteered to draw up the plan, since I have past communications and CUL experience with Civil Air Patrol. I recommended using the national tactical channels and he agreed.

I will hopefully be submitting the plan to my Chief in the next day or two. Yes I know that's the opinion that really counts since there are specifics to my county that people here are not familiar with, however I just wanted to get some reviews of the plan here too.

[mikeyboy411]

Tac Freqs

As an outsider-looking-in, it seems to me that the problem really isn't with your Radio Plan, but instead a training/discipline problem.

You can have a solid Tac Plan with 100's of channels but if nobody is willing to use them or has the on scene discipline to use them then they are worthless. Continue with your Radio Plan, but I would bring-up to your Chief the need for all members (and you set the example in your Department by being "anal" about this) to exercise on scene discipline and switch to the Tacs when they are either Staged or In the Area.

As I see it, the Chiefs are part of the problem because as the I.C. if a Unit that is assigned to my incident is not on the Tac Freq and I have to call them (3) times, I will usually leave the Command Post (under the supervision of a Deputy I.C.) and I will go and seek that Unit out and "light them up." A good "chain jerking" is usually all it takes to correct the action. If the action happens again, then follow it up with paperwork.

There are some serious issues here the more I think about it. Some of those are: the lack of on scene discipline, obvious non-adherence to SOP/SOGs, a definite lack of respect for the ICS/NIIMS, Chiefs that are not holding their personnel accountable for their actions and a disrespect for the FDs around each other. These can be easily corrected but the Chiefs in the area are going to have to put their egos aside and "lead" their People.

I don't mean to rain on your parade... Continue as you are but also find the answer to the deeper problem. Best of luck to ya (from one Comms Guy to another Comms Guy).

[islandfire03]

It is preferable for all fireground ops to take place on a simplex frequency, so you're not relying on the repeater channel .
It sounds as though you have a county wide repeated freq used for dispatch to mobile comms and then you have several other channels.
We have a similar set-up where 3 depts are on the same voted system for comms to dispatch which is 45 miles away, then we have a simplex talk around freq for incident scene use, a simplex freq for interior ops, a separate channel for water supply and tankers, and there are 3 other county wide freq's that can be requested use of from dispatch.

Can't read your chart , but it appears you have the right idea.