- Author
-
Worrell, M.
|
MacFarlane, A.
- Title
- Phoenix Fire Department Radio System Safety Project. Version 1.7. Final Report.
- Coporate
- Phoenix Fire Dept., AZ
- Report
-
Version 1.7; Final Report
October 8, 2004
93 p.
- Keywords
-
radio equipment
|
fire department
|
fire fighters
|
communication networks
|
rescue
|
radio waves
- Identifiers
- trunked radio factors
- Abstract
- The purpose of this summary is to provide a simple overview of the Fire Department's Radio System Safety Project Final Report. The City of Phoenix contracted with Motorola to build a Digital Trunked Radio System to provide communications for all city departments. The system utilizes the APCO Project 25 standard, a non-proprietary digital format. This open architecture allows the use of portable and mobile radios from multiple manufacturers. The system has a service area of approximately 2000 square miles. Trunked radio systems allow efficient use of the frequency spectrum and provide wide area communications capabilities; however, the Phoenix Fire Department has questioned the application of trunked radio technology to firefighting. Firefighters often work under hazardous conditions during the performance of their duties. Their radio communications equipment must extremely reliable and the communications functions it provides must be predictable. There is concern that the trunked radio system that is being deployed by the City of Phoenix will not meet the critical communications requirements of the Phoenix Fire Department. Several factors contribute to this concern. Among these is the ability of the system to provide crew and command communications within buildings and the predictability of system operation during system failure modes. The Fire Department has undertaken a qualitative study of operational communications on the fire ground to assess the suitability of trunking and conventional radios systems for fire fighting operations and produce a recommendation on the best system for these operations.