Radio Communications

1. Radio Communications KING COUNTY FIRE TRAINING OFFICER’S ASSOCIATION Photo Courtesy of Brian Birmingham

2. 800 Mhz Radio Stats • King County System consists of 3 separate sub-systems. • Seattle, King County/Valley Com, Bellevue(EPSCA) • 3 systems are controlled by 2 smartzone controller computers. • Computers are redundant, the backup controller is always ready to go in a case of failure

3. 800 Mhz Radio Stats cont. • 28 transmitter sites in the county wide system • 8 sites in the Valley Comm/King County system (Simulcast sites) • 3 intelli-repeaters in the KC/VC simulcast system

4. 800 Mhz Radios • Simulcast sites (KC/VC, Seattle, EPSCA) • Stand alone repeater sites • Site trunking over 132 frequencies • over 14,000 users • over 500 Talkgroups Radio Types

5. Repeater Sites

6. Regional Map

7. Site Trunking • Zone controlling computer failure • All Talkgroups default to Fire 1 unless site trunk Talkgroups are setup • Renton Fire has fire 1-7 set up for site trunking they are located at B bank positions 1-7. On the mobile radios RFD Admin is Site trunked and is located at position #27. • No Emer button during site trunking • No scanning during site trunking

8. 800 Mhz Radio Basics • Key the mike and wait for the 2 quick beeps prior to speaking. This is the talk permit tone. • No bedroom voices - speak loudly w/o yelling • Microphones should be about 3”-5” from mouth, ¼” for Headsets! • Take advantage of the carrier tail if possible to avoid re-acquiring frequencies from the zone controllers • If transmitting near another radio, have the other radios volume turned way down, and or cover speaker. This will reduce feedback

9. Basics • The radios are NOT waterproof - delicate electronics inside are sensitive to moisture • If you know you’re going anywhere near a flowing sprinkler head, give your radio to someone who isn’t! (Repairs run around $1500.00 repair, new radios are $2500.00) • After the fire clean them up! (Damp rag, mild soap, toothbrush, toothpick)

10. Bonks, what causes them? • Traffic is currently on the channel- The system will not let you talk over another unit. After getting bonked, you can talk after the radio gives you 2 quick chirps. This means it’s OK to talk. • During heavy volumes of traffic, there may not be any frequency pairs available for use. • You may be out of the range of the repeaters- below grade, metal buildings, large concrete structures can all block your radio signal. • Try to get near openings, windows, or doors-even turn your body, @ 3watts, it doesn’t take much to block a signal

11. Bonks cont. • If you are working in an area that has poor radio operation. Consider and plan on using STATE OPS 1 or STATE OPS 4 for local communication. • Always have someone monitor the Fire dispatch talkgroup and relay info to and from Valley Comm to document events. This person would have to be outside the structure. • City Hall, Renton High, Valley Medical are all excellent examples of when to use this tactic.

12. Emergency Button • An EMER Button press will take you automatically to EMER Z3 talkgroup. • You will stay there until you reset the radio • You obtain the highest priority for frequency allocation (Now a priority 1, Normal is 3, Disp. is 2) • Instead of a 1 second carrier tail there is a 1 minute carrier tail. • You may also select the EmergencyZone 3 talkgroup by switching to A15. Important

13. Emergency Button cont. • Once on the EMER Z3 talkgroup, Advise dispatch whether it’s an true emergency or an accidental push • If it’s a true emergency declare a MAYDAY, and give as much info as possible regarding your Emergency • If it’s and accidental press, advise dispatch of the accident while on EMER Z3, give radio number, and wait to hear Valley Comm confirm it. Then you can reset

14. Scanning • How to: • Advantages -monitor calls • Limits / Drawbacks - scan delays, uncertainty of the source of radio traffic • Fires - Turn it OFF!

15. Scanning Side Button #1 Use this button to toggle through the scan options -(Priority,Non-priority,No scan) Side button #2 Allows viewing and changing repeater sites. Push & Hold to change Side button #3 PTT Button This will allow you to go into direct(Simplex) mode on conventional repeated talkgroups

16. Scanning Battery, monitor, encryption, alert, scan, programming, direct

17. Scanning Scanning Indicator Select Buttons Start button Detail

18. Select the dot button below the item you want

19. Select Button Return

20. Push & hold to view & program scan list Toggle between scan options Dimmer & Backlight Press & hold to enter a talkgroup #. Press again to return to Fire 1 Delete from scan list Scroll thru scan list while in program mode

21. Communicating with other non-fire agencies • City Police - RENTON PS (B-14) • City/County Jail - STATE OPS 3 (C-3) • City/County Public Works - REN-CITY (A-14) • King County Sheriff - PSOPS S1(B9), PSOPS S2(B10) • WSP – MARS (B15), mobile radio (pos #12) • Airlift – Usually State Ops1 (simplex, A16)

22. Mutual Aid Response (Zone One) • When enroute and prior to switching talkgroups, Advise Valley Comm your switching to an Eastside Talkgroup. Then advise Eastside Dispatch that you are responding. Ex; VALLEY Eng 16 responding • When dispatched determine talkgroup if not already advised. If you don’t have it on your portable, advise host agency that you need to be patched via the MA ZONE talkgroup. • Eastside units responding into Zone 3 will either have our talkgroups or be patched via MA ZONE 3. It will be seamless to Zone 1 responders

23. Emergency Operations Center • If the 800 crashes we will use VHF City frequency (154.100) on VHF radios. • We will also use State Ops Channels for short range communications. Portables (3 watts) will operate for a distance of about 3 blocks – line of site. Obstructions will reduce transmit distance.Mobile radios (35 watts) will transmit city wide. • We will also use civilian amateur radio

24. Batteries • Brand new rating of 1500 milliamps hours • 80% rating is the minimum allowed for use in Fire Ops. Any battery below this rating must be taken OOS and sent to Sta.12, attn: M.Ketchum. A replacement battery will be sent. • Tri-analyze every 90 days minimum • Guaranteed 1 year warranty. Renton Fire has been getting over 3 years so far!

25. Batteries continued • Mark the date of conditioning • Mark the final reading • Check the condition of the battery label and replace if needed • Copies of Battery template are here Battery LabelsH:\communications\battery labels.doc

26. Simplex AKA Direct or Walkie Talkie

27. Conventional repeated

28. Trunked repeated Back

29. Do not carry 2 radios! You aren’t logged on to one of them and you short the station for recall radios with the other. Return

30. Accessories • Remote Speaker Microphones - Don’t leave them on apparatus they will become lost! • Driver Headsets • Earpieces • Voicemitter mask amplifiers

31. Pagers • Page gate should be installed in all stations • Software allows for easy maintenance • No immediate plans to go to the Valley Com paging system. Pager #’s

32. Haz-Mat gear • Familiarize yourself with this equipment if you have not had a chance to • Radios • Harness (radio) • Adapter • Headset • MSA BA Mask

33. Recent 800 Mhz Radio Servicing • Inventory of Valley Com system radios • Replacement of a chip on the radio board to hopefully eliminate Nextel Cellular interference • Radio bench tested for tolerances • Frequencies were aligned • New templates were programmed (most of Z3 has identical portable templates) • We are still waiting to have one more upgrade done to the radios. Motorola will be performing this upcoming servicing to improve repeater site selection.

34. Talkgroups Portables Red denotes - NO EMER BUTTON EMER WILL NOT WORK ON THESE TALKGROUPS!

35. TalkgroupsMobiles Red denotes - NO EMER BUTTON

36. Talkgroups

37. Talkgroups

38. Talkgroups

39. Talkgroups

40. Practice Question Are you happy to be here today? A You Bet! B Not a Chance C Not sure Yet D Where am I again? E I have no idea of the right answer

41. 1.       Where is the EMER button located? a)       It’s the blue button on the side b)       It’s the middle dot button on front c)       It’s the orange button on top

42.     2.       How long after pressing the PTT button should you pause before speaking? a)       5 seconds b)       1 second c)       2 seconds

43. 3.     STATE OPS Simplex channels are a good place to communicate when a)       Coverage on the regional system is poor? b)       True c)       False

44. 4.       To exit the EMERGENCY mode, you should? a)       Turn the Radio off, after confirming the event with dispatch on the EMER talkgroup b)       Press the home button on front c)       Press the orange button a second time

45. 5.       The EMER button only works on ________ Talkgroups. a)       Repeated b)       Trunked Repeated c)       Simplex

46. 6.       Simplex, or Direct communications means what? a)       Simple radio to radio transmissions (walkie talkie) b)       Direct repeater to repeater transmissions Satellite network communications

47. 7.       Site Trunking means that the _____ has gone down and I will need to switch to a Site Trunked Talkgroup. Ex; Fire 2 * on B Bank a)       Zone Controller b)       Radar c)       Satellite

48. 8.       How many Talkgroup banks does the MTS 2000 radio have in our department’s configuration? a)       36 b)       45 c)       48

49.   9.      The difference between a Repeated and Trunked Repeated system is? a)       range of communications b)       capacity of communications Trunked repeated uses pairs of frequencies

50.     10. If my radio goes into Fail-soft or Site Trunking, I should. a)       hurl the radio as far as humanly possible! b)       call B.C. Moeller and give him the what for! c)       Switch to ST ( * )talkgroups on Bank “B”