Rockland Fire UHF

[Guest]

Hey,

Can anyone here explain how the current Rockland Fire UHF system thats in place works?

What are the frequencies and how are they set up in the radios? I didnt know thats what fireground ops were conducted on. Is it a county wide plan like Westchester has?

Thanks in advance!!!

[res6cue 67]

There are six UHF frequencies licensed to Rockland County at 4 watts portable and they're part of the countywide radio plan:

TAC-1 465.5875 Mobile Crossband Repeaters

TAC-2 465.6375 Countywide UHF Fireground Ops

TAC-3 460.6375 Countywide UHF Fireground Ops

TAC-4 460.6125 Countywide UHF Fireground Ops

TAC-5 465.6125 Countywide UHF Fireground Ops

TAC-6 460.6875 Countywide UHF Fireground Ops

Each dept has an assigned primary TAC channel they use for operations. Basically to minimize overlap with neighboring depts, the channel assignments are staggered somewhat. Any dept is technically free to use whatever channel they want to, but we all stick to our primaries for common sense reasons. Of course when responding mutual aid, we switch channels as needed. We are dispatched on low band, respond on low band and establish command on low band. Generally orders for incoming units are also given on low band, but if the truck is within range of the UHF radios, they might get their orders that way instead. All messages to 44-Control are on low band, as they have no UHF capability.

That's the basic way it works, but there's a bit more to it. Quite a few depts are actually licensed on their own UHF frequencies in addition to the six listed above. New City (Dept 9), for example, uses their own channel with a DPL on it (instead of the normal countywide analog PL of 167.9). Most depts have UHF portables, some depts also have mobile UHF radios, and there may even be a handful that don't even have any UHF capability at all (although the Chiefs might have portables). There is no countywide mandate that you must use UHF for fireground ops, though. Depts are free to operate exclusively on low band if they wish.

What happened was many years ago, a few depts went out and got the FCC to license them on UHF. Then they bought UHF portables. In our dept, for example, we've had UHF portables for almost two decades now. There were only a handful of them though, and their use was mainly limited to the officers. In the beginning, they weren't used so much for UHF to UHF communication as they were used with the PAC/RT mobile repeaters in the trucks to crossband to low band for increased range. That system eventually evolved into buying more and more UHF portables and going to a full time UHF fireground system. It started with a handful of us and caught on from there. The county had those six UHF channels and eventually as the system caught on, they figured they had better organize it to avoid conflict. So in a sense it is a countywide system, but in another sense it's really not.

Here are a few of the TAC channels assignments that some of the depts operate on. Sorry for the incomplete list, I took these from the list we have of our dept's usual mutual aid companies.

Dept 6 - Hillcrest TAC-2

Dept 7 - Monsey TAC-5

Dept. 9 - New City TAC-13

Dept 17 - Spring Valley TAC-3

Dept 18 - Stony Point TAC-2

Dept 20 - Tallman TAC-2

Dept 25 - South Spring Valley TAC-4

Dept 26 - Thiells TAC-2

Technical Rescue Team TAC-5

If I've confused you even more, I apologize. I probably didn't explain it very well, so if you have any questions, fire away and I'll try to clear things up.

[Guest]

This is so cool. You couldnt have explained it better. I really appreciate you taking the time to go in depth like you did.

I am going to program these into my scanner so I will have them then. It seems like a lot of departments have crossbands to low band too I guess incorporated into their UHF radio plans

Thank you very much for all your help!

[res6cue 67]

No trouble at all. Incidentally, New City's UHF fireground channel (listed as TAC-13 in our portables) is 460.5750.

[RocklandFires 44]

No trouble at all. Incidentally, New City's UHF fireground channel (listed as TAC-13 in our portables) is 460.5750.

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Dept.2 & Dept.24 both use Tac-2

I believe we use Tac-3 for FAST Team operations

Brian - Central Nyack F.D.