SA Firefighter
General Discussion => SASES => Topic started by: littlejohn on April 22, 2007, 07:07:30 PM
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Is it standard for SES units travelling to an incident to give detailed progress reports?
ie, units seem to be calling base as they pass through each town on the way to and from incidents.
The base quotes the time whenever someone calls it too. Handy I spose if you don't have a clock in the vehicle, but what's the practical reason for doing so?
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Also how do the callsigns work. (Unit name)no.?? the first two numbers signify the station and whats with the third number. I am talking about the callsigns not the mfs pager codes..
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Is it standard for SES units travelling to an incident to give detailed progress reports?
ie, units seem to be calling base as they pass through each town on the way to and from incidents.
The base quotes the time whenever someone calls it too. Handy I spose if you don't have a clock in the vehicle, but what's the practical reason for doing so?
Time quoting can be for a few different reasons.. Some agencies do this as the radio traffic is recorded, yet data ie. time, of the transmission is not.. So it depends on the reasoning but there are a few possibilities.
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Each unit is allocated a group of 10 numbes ie. 331 - 340. The unit then allocates these numbers as they see fit. Some have the give the unit a number, some start vehicles at the bottom - other at the top, or maybe even allocated to a person.
There are currently moves to impliment a more standardised callsign arrangement.
ie. unit manager = {unit name} 1
team leader = {unit name} 5 etc etc
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A hangover from the old VHF radio system, each SES vehicle has a unique three digit number. For example Prospect SES use 442 and 441 for their vehicles and Metro South SES have 331, 332, 333, etc.
Unlike CFS, the vehicle numbers have no relevance to what the vehicle is or its capability. But it makes for short radio transmissions and minimal confusion at a multi-unit incident.
As Mike stated, to avoid a persons name being transmitted each officer has a number allocated. Some Units use this often, some do not. For example, State2 is a certain person.
If you are using a GRN handheld radio, then it is allocated the callsign of the vehicle the crew are associated with then Alpha, Bravo, etc. So Prospect SES were using 442 alpha and 442 charlie at the Glendie Greek festival display on the weekend.
The use of broadcasting time by some SES Units is a local Unit operational requirement. Some SES Units have voice recorders on the LHQ base radios, so maybe if they state the date/time of the call during the radio transmission then this is recorded. It is also a quick way for Unit officers to keep track of the response times and how long between radio welfare checks. I am not absolutely sure of the reason because we do not do this in out SES Unit.
I hope this helps.
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Is it standard for SES units travelling to an incident to give detailed progress reports?
ie, units seem to be calling base as they pass through each town on the way to and from incidents.
The base quotes the time whenever someone calls it too. Handy I spose if you don't have a clock in the vehicle, but what's the practical reason for doing so?
It is being encouraged that SES Local Headquarters contact their vehicles/people every 15 minutes for welfare checks.
This ensures that the crew are OK and officers can obtain progress of the crews via SITREPS. The progress is also recorded accurately then in the radio/operations log.
Thus if the worst happened and a SES vehicle has an accident, then a search of 30 kilometres road is quicker than a few 100 kilometres of road to find the crew.
Especially important during a search where SES crew are kilometers away from their vehicles in the bush. Also helps determine the GRN black spots in a search area.
If crews have UHF CB radios for local crew communication, then they use their own radio protocol.
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Is it standard for SES units travelling to an incident to give detailed progress reports?
ie, units seem to be calling base as they pass through each town on the way to and from incidents.
The base quotes the time whenever someone calls it too. Handy I spose if you don't have a clock in the vehicle, but what's the practical reason for doing so?
It is being encouraged that SES Local Headquarters contact their vehicles/people every 15 minutes for welfare checks.
This ensures that the crew are OK and officers can obtain progress of the crews via SITREPS. The progress is also recorded accurately then in the radio/operations log.
Thus if the worst happened and a SES vehicle has an accident, then a search of 30 kilometres road is quicker than a few 100 kilometres of road to find the crew.
Especially important during a search where SES crew are kilometers away from their vehicles in the bush. Also helps determine the GRN black spots in a search area.
If crews have UHF CB radios for local crew communication, then they use their own radio protocol.
When there are GRN black spots thats where UHF CB or HF comes in handy :wink:
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Thanks bajdas!
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When there are GRN black spots thats where UHF CB or HF comes in handy :wink:
SES don't have VHF radio. Some SES Units have Marine radio and HF radios are disappearing.
Majority of the time if the GRN radio is in a blackspot, mobile telephones are used has a secondary communication medium. Our crew sheets (like CFS T-Cards) list everyones mobile telephone on them.
Senior staff are now being issued with portable satellite telephones instead of HF radio.
UHF CB's are now in the newer SES vehicles and they are used for short distance "line of sight" transmission. For example, from each end of a search line to the team leader, from the casualaty to the team leader or from the roof to the team leader.
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we have uhf in our trucks and crusier how ever we were given 231-235 as our number range we use it as
231= RCR primary response
232= forward command bus before it was taken away (not used now)
233= General rescue
234= used to be the crusier (not used now)
235= land cruser/forward command
who has heard about the new ses call signs comming out and what do you think???
i think its crap lets keep it simple
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care to share this news about new SES appliance numbering?
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Altho i havent seen the new callsign list i have been told that it will become simalar to cfs eg, pirie 21 2wd rescue pirie 22 2wd storm or say a pirie 41 4wd rescue, it may be different as i havent seen the new layout, Now as a unit member of pirie i know my units callsigns however i am also a member of the North Region operational support unit Comms team and at times we handle the dispatch and some comms for hole of region and we dont know what one truck to another truck does eg at booleroo centre they have 151 as there command car and 152 as there rescue at pirie we have 431 rescue 432 storm 433 command 434 Marine boat 435 quad bike so i feel that the new callsigns are a good thing least you will know by the callsign what the truck does.
Jono Taylor
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care to share this news about new SES appliance numbering?
It is not new SES numbering each unit has a block of numbers eg Sturt has 201-205,Metro South 331-335 etc.These numbers have been around for years :wink:
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care to share this news about new SES appliance numbering?
It is not new SES numbering each unit has a block of numbers eg Sturt has 201-205,Metro South 331-335 etc.These numbers have been around for years :wink:
While SES has used numbers before as SA Firey said, this is a new system that is coming out that will bring it more in line with the CFS/MFS callsign system.
It will be Unit Name followed by a two digit number based on what the appliance does. For example:
2wd cars that are not trucks or RCR are 2x
4wds that are not trucks or RCR are 4x
RCR trucks are 9x
logistics appliances like the flatbeds are 7x
general rescue trucks, which is anything but logistics or RCR are 3x
So with my unit we have Adelaide Hills 40 for our 4WD light rescue (341) and Adelaide Hills 30 for the truck (342).
Thats the basic idea of whats going on, its still at draft stage but they want to go live with it in September last I heard.
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may feeling is that it wont work cause in the draft it reads that 4wd cars eg land cruisers and 4wd trucks RCR or not with have the same call sign could it not be more simple for example
kapunda at the moment use 231 to 235 so why not drop the last digit to make it station 23
then use what the mfs already use so that a primary RCR truck will be for example
kapunda 2319
station name station number appliance type keep it the same accros the while state then cfs ses and mfs all know what is going on and who is around
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how about give SES appliances callsigns like "Strathalbyn Rescue" or "Kapunda Salvage"....comm's easy for everyone to remember hehe
a current practical use is in my own CFS/SES group...where the RCR resource is "Lobethal (Loby) Rescue", and Storm Damage Resource is "Onkaparinga (Onka) Salvage"
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thats a great idea however we have two trucks and a 4wd all ses trucks are "rescue" in ses rescue can me alot of things so how could we tell the diff between a RCR truck and a general rescue truck as kapunda has both
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Perhaps by the "dominatant" sorta rescue equipment stored on the appliance?
like "Kapunda Roadcrash", "Rescue", "Mount", "Car-1"
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i like the use of "car-1" i belive that the idea of 4wds in the ses were for command roles in cfs the strike team leader is in car 1 or car 2 depending on the group size i do like your idea but i feel keeping the same accros the state is the best
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I understand that the new call sign system is to be the same on pager messages. This is to remove the numeric numbers that everyone is complaining about.
The push to limit the resources responded in a pager message to SES<3 or 2 alpha unit><2 digit vehicle>.
The same for CFS and MFS. eg CFS<3 or 2 alpha unit><2 digit vehicle>.
This in proposal/draft stage.
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In the MFS
4 is Heavy Rescue
19 is Rescue
23 is Salvage
25 is marine vessel
27 is lighting
37 is Utility
39 is Rescue Salvage
Perhaps somewhat having a system around these numbers
"Kapunda Alpha-39"
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Well September is not far away so wait and see :wink:
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The other issue is that some of the old SES Unit names are proposed to change to reflect where the Unit exists, rather than older council names. Not sure how some of the metropolitan names will shorten to 3 alpha for paging yet.
This is quite large when you consider Unit constutions, letterheads, writing on Unit buildings, vehicles, websites, etc, etc.
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The other issue is that some of the old SES Unit names are proposed to change to reflect where the Unit exists, rather than older council names. Not sure how some of the metropolitan names will shorten to 3 alpha for paging yet.
The Identifier will use the standard 3 letter address group that has been used for message ID's for some 30+years with some minor updates like Sturt was HVY and now will be STT.
AA
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How about less abbreviations lol...im beginning to agree with a Victoria counterpart that we use too many abbreviations.
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How about less abbreviations lol...im beginning to agree with a Victoria counterpart that we use too many abbreviations.
I agree but mostly full names are too long for pager messages and a serial number is totally useless without a look up sheet. At least abbreviations normally have some link to the full name.
AA
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but if you know the nubers of the units around you ie for kapunda we would have to know saddelworth northen districs and blanchtown you know who is who leave the names the way they are and use somthing like what MFS have for example MFS have gawler 359 why can kapunda have kapunda 239 etc etc
so a pager msg would read MFS daliy inc ## respond rcr kapunda thelie hwy near river light bridge towards eudunda unknown entrapments 239 2348
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I doubt very much that your pager station id would change just the vehicle call signs would change.
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I doubt very much that your pager station id would change just the vehicle call signs would change.
Proposal is to change the numeric id number in text of pager to SES<alpha unit id><numeric vehicle id>. The actual paging id number will not change for the group of pagers.
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but the proposed call signs have double up some units have 4wd trucks and 4wd cars but call signs would be the same even if they are different appliances the only way to tell them apart is by unit name mabye sate and reion need to get of there back side and do some work why not leave it as is and make a list of what call sighn goes with what truck and what the truck does
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Mate as someone who was around when the idea of the new callsigns was discussed in our part of the region (which is because we are running out of numbers) I would like to set the record straight - it was only floated as a discussion paper, unfortunately it got out to a wider audience to answer your question Kapunda potentially would have Kapunda 91, 92, 93 hope this helps cheers
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we have been given the new call signs we have 91 31 41 as well as quad bike 1 quad bike 2 horse 1 horse 2 etc its a great idea now all we need and a state standard of stowage for each appliance so if we have northern districts 31 responding to us we know what it is able to do what gear it carries as its basics i have noticed that not all trucks have the same basics on it i know our 31 is different to clares 31
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Yep we are 91, 31, 41, 81 you won't ever have them identical due to the vehicles themselves being different. The 91's should be close but same gear, with the main stuff in the same spots. If you look on the SES week web site or the posts on here about SES Week you will see what I mean.
cheers
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cool thanks im just thinking of all the basic gear for that appliance to be the same not always in the same spot but at least you know that each appliance comming has the basics and then some.
i know each unit puts gear on that every unit has but then they add to it we have big time we have extra saws drills our 31 is also able to respond to shoring etc just because our U.M has bought extra gear.
can you see what im trying to say if not its cool ask me what you dont understand or if you want me to ry and explain it again
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91's pretty much fixed because of the standards of emergency response.
It sounds like your 31 is carrying some USAR gear. The trailer in the photo carries confine space gear, tripod, some rope gear, some cribbing, a second set of HOH, ACROWS, a second tirfor etc. 31 itself is light RCR (including 330 cutters), vertical access gear, compressor & air hydraulic pump and finally a 3.5 kva gen set. The idea is that 31 & its trailer can do what 91 does but is 4x4 off road & carries confine space.
We also have a heavy storm trailer ( lessons learnt after the Renmark storm). Basically we can put two teams of equipment on the road, what ever the task. I am interested in the type of gear you guys carry on your 31 specially anything thats not standard kit. cheers
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chook if your talking about the trailer in my pic look closer its a horse float we don't have usar trailers and storm trailers we put it on the truck if it doesn't fit then it sits in the shed and we chuck it on a trailer or in the back of the cruiser when we need it.
we have three trailers we have the quad bike trailer, lighting and a logistics then the two horse floats the only usar/storm trailer i have seen is at metro south.
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Ha Ha no mate I was talking about the photos of the trailer behind our 31 (on the ses website or in another post here).
might be going blind but I do know what a float looks like :-D.
I was asking about the kit you carry on your 31, you mentioned that yours and Clares were different.
cheers