wcvb report on lawrence mass comms problems at gas explosions

https://www.wcvb.com/article/communication-breakdown-mass-still-struggling-with-public-safety-radio-plan/29896430

1. I think the major problem now is that 'too many radios have TOO
MANY channels' - hard to believe - but true - but thats more of a
'pithy slogan' than a 'statement of fact' - maybe its the old "more is
better" fallacy

2. just the facts - half the FDs in the area use VHF highband (150 to
174 mhz) - half use UHF (450 to 480 Mhz) - there are only a handful of
fire mutual aid channels - no one ever practices using the interops
channels - and there are only 5 vhf IO channels and 4 UHF IO channels
- there are no dedicated travel channels - there are no dedicated air
to ground channels - there are no dedicated commander channels - so
even if every radio has 120 or 480 channels, there is no simple
straightforward plan for using them

3. lets look at the event - 60 building fires in 3 towns - you would
need 3 dispatch channels plus 60 fireground channels plus maybe 10
commander channels plus maybe 5 travel channels to handle the comms

4. you probably think that 60 fireground channels are not available -
Boston FD uses about 16 freqs - Boston Police uses approx 40 freqs -
Boston EMS uses approx 10 freqs - Boston is 30 miles from Lawrence -
if all of the Boston freqs had been used in simplex mode with
appropriate PLs you would have 66 freqs - and that just reusing the
Boston freqs intelligently