scanSydney

Just curious on the strength of the transmissions on incident ground channels... always have my scanner set to scan them, there have been several incidents where Katoomba comms have instructed appliances to use these channels (and I've been no more than 5km from those incidents), yet never actually received anything.

The channels I'm scanning are taken from sydneyfire.net.au

Same applies to the RFS Fire Ground channels posted here - but I wonder if this list is still used as I have heard them in the past.

The NSWFB primary fire ground channel is Ch 510 425.5875. I was once told that the output for our handhelds are about 0.6watts while the Fire Ground Radio's in the newer trucks are about 5-10watts.

So as you could imagine, given the terrain and building surroundings, fire ground comm’s for us are really only good for around 200 to 300m.

JAFO wrote:I was once told that the output for our handhelds are about 0.6watts while the Fire Ground Radio's in the newer trucks are about 5-10watts.

Ahh! That'd explain NSWFB Incident Ground chans. I expected it to be very low.

JAFO wrote:The NSWFB primary fire ground channel is Ch 510 425.5875. I was once told that the output for our handhelds are about 0.6watts while the Fire Ground Radio's in the newer trucks are about 5-10watts.

So as you could imagine, given the terrain and building surroundings, fire ground comm’s for us are really only good for around 200 to 300m.

Hi Grant,

That is very out of date information that goes back to the much despised Bendix King handhelds. The handhelds have been 4Watts since the MTS2000 & the new XTS5000s are 5Watters. Mobiles are set to low power (10Watts) to comply with the ACMA licence for ambulatory channels.

Off the tower at Greenacre we hear 510 traffic from most of Sydney so it is more a case of topography limiting range than the RF power of the radio.

Cheers,

Richard

ivahri wrote:That is very out of date information that goes back to the much despised Bendix King handhelds. The handhelds have been 4Watts since the MTS2000 & the new XTS5000s are 5Watters. Mobiles are set to low power (10Watts) to comply with the ACMA licence for ambulatory channels.

Hmm... then theres no reason I can't RX.

At my work we get heaps of false alarms (mostly fire sensor beams being cut by scaffolding etc) & they are called out at least 5 times a year

Last week we had another false alarm which turned out to be somebody filling a bucket of hot water in a sink which had a sensor right above it (we are getting the sensor relocated).

I am now part of the OHS committee & we are slowly getting evacuation procedures sorted out, so after myself & the other OHS members got 99.9% of the people out (all customers & some staff) I lead the FB crew to the section of the building with the alarm & confirmed it was as false one, they were using a handheld to speak to the other crew at the fire panel which is at the back of the building.

I noticed by the audio & hearing a subtone on the crews audio that they were on simplex PMR handhelds & not GRN portables

The FB crew actually complimented me on how empty the building was for once, for the past 4 years since we opened usually everybody just sat there with the fire alarm going off it's head, with some staff even turning off the alarm!

Now with the OHS committee being formed & everybody told to listen to us we now stand a chance of getting people out if there is a real fire!

I have picked up RFS using VHF fire-ground frequencies on my handheld when they were engaged in a bushfire in Hazelbrook when I was living at Woodford (next town) & the copy was mostly fine.

Michael

hey think yourself lucky, when i was working at luna park many years ago just after it re-opened we had Crows Nest and Lane Cove turn out to the admin building there 5 times in the one day...

there were maintenance guys in the building who were given permission but no one bothered telling security that there were people in there, and didn't bother isolating any zones on the FIP...
I would have liked to be a fly on the wall when Crows Nest SO got hold of the engineering guys the next business day as he was not very impressed(to put it bluntly)...

Michael,

You'll soon start to see the firies carrying a mix of XTS5000s (normally 2 per appliance) for use on the GRN with the XTS3000s kept purely for incident ground use. The new radios started getting issued a bit over a week ago with special crews (like FIU & 9 Hazmat) first, and the Illawarra stations over the past few days. Sydney crews will start seeing them in the next month to 6 weeks depending on how many techs Moto can get moving.

Cheers,


Richard

"Motorola" (a radio tech I assume) has been very busy on the Wollongong and Goulburn channels over the last week or so doing radio and emergency button checks with W/gong comms; I can only guess that they are out there already reprogramming appliance radios in station?

Andrew

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