Orange County 911 New FD Frequency

[JetPhoto 626]

Today OC 911 put a new frequency in service for fire departments. Does anyone know what it is and it's primary role?

[Guest Photounit]

Would you be referring to 453.825????? If so, it's supposed to be for dispatch.......

[trauma74 111]

I am posting this so there is no confusion about what is going on with the frequencies at the Orange County 911 Center. As far back as anyone can remember, when a unit called out to 36 Control, that unit transmitted on 46.22. When Control answered back to the calling unit, they answered back at on 46.16

The main truck to truck channel for all FD units in the County has been 46.16 , The problem was that when you were talking on truck to truck and Control had to answer a calling unit, they would transmit on 46.16 and you would get stepped on. They were transmitting at 100 watts so there was no way that you would not get stepped on by Control. There were numerous times when units were transmitting important messages to each other and they got stepped on by Control. It was not the fault of Control. It was a fault in the system.

The reason why Control's system was set up this way was because years ago the radios in all the FD vehicles did not scan. The radios were 2 channel mobile radios. Control did not need to hear every single unit that was operating on the truck to truck channel, but they needed a way to contact the units and with not being able to scan another channel, the units needed to hear Control.

Now, because 99.9% of the FD units in the County have radios that scan, there are numerous other truck to truck channels to operate on and because many of the FD utilize their own fireground channels, there is no longer a need to have this old legacy radio system. Below I have listed the changes to the new way that units will contact 36 Control:

OC F2 - 46.16 will be the frequency that all units will use to transmit and receive with 36 Control

In the near future, F2 46.16 will become the new F1. The old F1 46.22 transmit frequency will become the new F2. This will all be finalized shortly once all FDs have their radios reprogrammed and the County gets everything changed over.

I hope this clears up any confusion about what is going on at the 911 Center with the FD channels. On a side note, Control does not use UHF channels to page out or talk to responding units on UHF channels. Anything that you hear on a UHF channel is because many FDs have UHF links that they set up and paid for to talk to Control. Control still pages on 154.205 and they use the low band 46.16 to receive and transmit to units.