Metropolitan Fire Service

Communications Overview

Metropolitan fire appliances use a mobile data terminal mounted in the vehicle for receiving information on incidents and also for sending status messages, the data network operates on the VHF radio channels previously used for voice transmissions. Another VHF frequency is dedicated to the station turnout systems operating in the 19 metropolitan fire stations; the communications centre operator broadcasts details of incidents over this channel, which is then directed into the station PA system for all fire fighters to hear.

The SA GRN radio equipment in vehicles consists of one Motorola MCS 2000 mobile radio and three MTS 2000 portable radios. One 99 channel Motorola Syntrx radio is fitted for use with the Mobile data terminal and also to serve as a backup should the GRN fail in its role. Therefore the MFS use both their conventional VHF and UHF simplex frequencies and the SA GRN’ s VHF and UHF Frequencies, listed elsewhere under the SA MFS Index of the site.

Metropolitan appliances transmit messages to the communications centre on talkgroup 150 MFS Dispatch 1. When operating at incidents simplex channel 182SPX01_MFS (411.5857MHz) is used. For larger or specialized incidents the communications centre will allocate a talkgroup for fire-ground communications, these are talkgroups 155 -159 for metropolitan incidents and 160 - 164 for incidents involving the Country Fire Service.

The MFS has fire stations in many larger country towns (what us Aussies call ‘Regional Centres”), they rely on retained firefighters who are required to carry SA GRN pagers for incident notification. All emergency telephone calls are relayed through to the Adelaide communications centre where details are taken and a pager message is sent to the appropriate fire fighters. Local fire alarms are connected to the town’s fire station, when an alarm is received a pre programmed message is sent to the fire fighters pager alerting them to the incident, in much the same way as VicFire and the ERS system work here in Victoria.

Country Fire Stations (MFS ones, that is) do not transmit messages back to the Adelaide Fire Communications Centre, as all situation reports and requests for assistance are relayed to the local fire station using the S.A. Government Radio Network (Trunking).

©2004 COPYRIGHT The Australian Scanning Encyclopedia, VicNews Ltd, and Ashley Geelan.

No part of this page may be transmitted or re-produced in whole or part without permission from the author(s). Unless for the purposes of education, research or bona fide study. This Page Last Updated: January 16, 2004

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