Boston Marathon radio recap

lets recap the UHF public safety radio systems along the race course

the race goes throw a dozen cities and towns - most of them now have
secondary UHF radio channels that they can use to locally handle race
day radio traffic - which leaves the few mutual aid radio channels
open

BAPERN (police) has 2 regionwide channels and several sub regional
channels - maybe a total of 5 will work well along the race course

MetroFire has 1 or 2 regional channels - and 3 sub regional channels -
plus 3 HT channels - plus 2 MO3 channels

Fire District 14 has maybe 1 regional channel and a couple of FB2T channels

NEMLEC might have 1 or 2 FB2T channels

MEMA has 1 UHF channel in the Boston area - unknown how good the
portable radio coverage is - same for MBHS (Mass Bay Homeland Security
or whatever it is called) - they might have 1 interop channel and 1
ems channel also (guessing they will work best in the downtown area)

CMED has multi repeater sites - unknown how well portables work on any
of their channels

Boston has 460.275 R for interops among Boston units - unknown how
well portable radios work on the channel

Subway and below ground coverage - some Boston FD channels - some
Boston Police channels - and some Boston EMS channels work underground
in downtown Boston - MetroFire red might also work - unknown if any
BAPERN channels work underground - this might be the crux of the
entire radio plan

If only BPD Ch 1 and BFD Ch 4 and BFD Ch 1 and BEMS Ch ?12? and
MetroFire Red work underground in the downtown subways and roadways -
and if those underground channels cannot be decoupled from above
ground ops on those channels - then obviously all of those channels
need to be held in reserve in case any subway incident happens - at
the least there needs to be a plan to immediately clear those channels
for underground use when needed

Transit Police have either 1 or 2 UHF channels that work underground

State Police might have some below ground coverage on their 700/800
TRS - but it is unknown how extensive that coverage is

Boston Med Flight has 461.425 to use in the Boston area - but the
channel receives heavy interference from other local users - it
boggles my mind that they still use that channel

Unknown what channels would be used by Hazmat and decon and WMD teams
or swat teams - either local, state, or federal - gonna guess that
maybe only the FBI could talk portable to portable from Hopkinton to
Boston

====================

Adding this all up

1. small incidents will be handled on local channels by local agencies

2. major incidents can be handled by suburban police units on BAP 2
west + maybe BAP west tac + BAP Central + BAP 3 + BAP 4 - unknown how
well portable radios work on any of those channels - but you would
think that BAP 3 and BAP 4 would have more remote receiver sites than
any other channel in eastern Massachusetts - dispatchers will have to
use cellphones or landlines or the Internet for comm center to comm
center messages

3. major incidents can be handled by suburban fire units on Metro Fire
Red and Fire District 14 Tac and maybe Fire District 14 Primary and
maybe Metro Fire Central and maybe Metro Fire Admin

4. major incidents can be handled by suburban EMS units on maybe MBHS
EMS channel and maybe some CMED channels - there are very few good
options here

5. in Boston - maybe BPD Ch 7 could be used above ground and BPD Ch 1
could be used below ground - BFD Ch 1 and Ch 4 could be used below
ground - that leaves BFD Ch 2 and Ch 3 for all of their other ops -
BEMS can maybe use BEMS Tac 7 underground

6. in Boston - 460.275 R and 471.6875 R could be used for commander
nets if they have any sort of decent portable coverage downtown - but
that will take high level coordination between MEMA and Bosoton -
which might not exist in any shape nor form

7. air to ground traffic can hopefully be handled on some designated
simplex channels

8. as extreme backups - the UTac channels are available - but
Topsfield FD uses 1 of them as their primary channel - and the Norton
FD apparently uses a different UTac channel as their primary channel -
so 50% of the UTac channels cannot be used

9. many many people have access to these various UHF channels - it
will be very difficult for any commander to gain clear access to any
channel - 10 years since the incident and nothing has changed - UNLESS
- every commander will have a FirstNet radio that is known to work
exceptionally well during a disaster