The fourteen fire and EMS departments dispatched by the Butler County Sheriff’s Office will begin using the BRICS 800MHz voice system this Thursday, December 10th at 10:00am. This includes:
- Fairfield Township Fire Department
- Hanover Township Fire Department
- Liberty Township Fire Department
- Madison Township Fire Department
- Milford Township Fire Department
- Morgan Township Fire Department
- New Miami Fire Department
- Reily Township Fire Department
- Ross Township Fire Department
- Seven Mile Fire Department
- Somerville Fire Department
- St. Clair Township Fire Department
- St. Clair/New Miami EMS
- Wayne Township Fire Department
This will complete the transition for users dispatched by BCSO.
On Thursday at 1000
The switch will happen at approximately 1000 hours. An announcement will be made on the Sheriff Fire VHF channel and the new SO FD MAIN talkgroup when it is time to begin using the new radios.
Major emergencies or incidents in progress may delay the switch, or a particular incident may continue on the old channel until its conclusion. Follow instructions from the dispatcher.
Hospitals
Two hospitals will now be accepting patient reports on the new system, using the ER talkgroups in Zone C: McCullough-Hyde Hospital and West Chester Medical Center.
Call them using your normal unit designation (e.g. “Medic 212 to West Chester Medical Center”) and wait for a response before delivering your patient report or request for medical control.
We will make announcements on our website when the remaining four hospitals in our service area begin using the radio system.
Talkgroups and Fireground Assignments
The main dispatch talkgroup is SO FD MAIN; it is primarily reserved for communication between field units and the dispatcher. Depending on call volume, contact with dispatch may be shifted to SO FD OPS 2 or SO FD OPS 3.
BC Fireground talkgroups will be assigned for multi-apparatus responses (e.g. fire alarms, injury crashes, structure fires, etc) at the time of dispatch. Single-squad EMS calls will normally not be assigned a Fireground talkgroup, but anytime you feel an alternate incident talkgroup is needed, you may request the dispatcher assign one.
When you hear “respond on Main and use Fireground 7” it means you will talk to the dispatcher on MAIN and use BC Fireground 7 to talk between units assigned to your incident. If you’re told to respond on OPS 2, for instance, it would indicate that your status changes and requests of the dispatcher will happen on OPS 2 because of congestion on MAIN.
A dispatcher will not monitor or respond to traffic on the Fireground talkgroup. The incident commander will make requests to the dispatcher on the dispatch talkgroup (normally MAIN).
Fire Tones
Your normal tones will continue on the VHF channel (154.370) to activate pagers and station alerting. A system-wide standard fire/EMS tone will be heard on the 800MHz radios at the same time, to fill the air while your VHF tones are sounding.
Other Information
Fire/EMS Unit Designations and Terminology
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