InterceptRadio.com Forums

I would appreciate people's help and knowledge.

I'm trying to break King County Fire into more manageable, geographic "chunks". Specifically, I want to my my local district distinct from everything else that's going on in the county, but it's not broken out geographically like, say, KCSO is. I know KCFPD is on a zone system (I'm in Zone 1), but the data available here and on RadioIntercept and other sources really only breaks out the mutual aid talk groups by zone. Otherwise, it's all by fire districts, which don't have distinct talk group ID's.

So, for example, is what I've posted below actually the dispatches for 4 distinct zones, or is it really a single dispatch with 3 TAC channels?

Many thanks in advance.

38448 963 A KCFD 1 King County Fire 1 Fire Dispatch
38480 965 A KCFD 2 King County Fire 2 Fire-Tac
38512 967 A KCFD Vc3 VC Common Fire 3 Fire-Tac
38544 969 A KCFD Vc3 VC Common Fire 4

Are you referring to the how the fire departments are coordinated by their defined "zones" or districts, or are you referring to the radio operating zones, i.e.: how they are configured in the SmartZone of the KC radio system?
My guess is you are looking for how the districts are broken out into defined zones and not how it is coordinated within that sites of the system. Just checking to better understand what you are looking for.

Thanks for responding. I think you articulated what I'm looking for better than I did, but let me put it another way just to be clear. I'm programming a GPS-enabled scanner, so I'd like to be able to break out all districts regionally - so I just hear traffic from those districts that are near me. But, it seems like all districts are dispatched centrally, which would prevent dispatch from being geo-graphically defined.

The other case is when I'm sitting hear at home and maybe don't want to hear dispatches for the entire county - I just want to hear the dispatches for the 3 or 4 districts (e.g. stations) that are near me.

Is this possible?

Thanks

King County fire south (dispatched by Valleycom) dispatch their area from the single dispatch TGID that you show, and then assign a tac channel to the call. So you will not find separate dispatch TG's based on the area or zone. The same is true for the north end. Norcom who dispatches for the east and north end departments. One single main dispatch TG that uses Locution. The call is then assigned to a specific tac channel. Norcom does have a "Dispatch 2" but that is voice comms between units and the dispatcher generally for coordination when not assigned to a call and when units are out of the station. No actual calls go out on that channel. So it would be impossible to create a location based GPS grid for stations or units around just you. The only solution might be is to get yourself a POCSAG pager and program it up for the various cap codes for the stations, units, and or BC's close to you.

PD's may be different. While what you want to do would not work with KCSO, it might work with some of the local PD's that self-dispatch. Redmond, Kirkland, and Bellevue all have their own TG's and it would be easy to create a GPS zone to turn on and off their TG's.

The "Zone" channels you see for the FD are primarily used for larger coordinated incidents where multiple departments may be involved in a working event (such as a larger structure fire). There is also a mutual aid channel setup for departments and dispatch centers to interop with each other (and to SFD) as needed.

Others may chime in here to add more in-depth and first hand knowledge beyond what I show here.

Hope this helps you.

Thank you. That's what I had concluded (and was afraid of), I was just hoping I'd missed something that enabled this to be done.

As for all the other agencies in KC, I do have them broken out by TG ID's and assigned to geographical areas for GPS-enabled operations.

But, thank you for confirming my fears.

I'll toss in my 2 cents.... I'll likely repeat some info. I can only speak for the Fire/EMS side of things.
And keep in mind these are GENERAL examples. Not hard rules.

Valleycom dispatches "most" of King Co.

We (all FD's) get dispatched on Fire1 which is TG 38448.
We then generally respond on these 3 TG depending on the type of call.
Fire-2 - 38480 - Aid Calls
Fire-3 - 38512 - MVC's, Outdoor Burns
Fire-4 - 38544 - Fire calls

There is also Fire 5, 6 and 7 which can be used. They are not very active. But will be used for example, two working fires or going or it's very busy. Like on the 4th of July.

As far as the Zone response TG's. Personally, I've never heard them used.
The Ops TG's get used mostly for training.
The PSOPS TG's are what we use for multi agency incidents. For example we will use a PSOPS TG if we get a river call and have to work with the KCSO over the radio. Valleycom can also setup a patch if requested. PD will often use one of the Ops TG's for their own stuff too.

So, with all of this said. If you are trying to setup a System/Group in your scanner to only hear for example, Zone3 departments being dispatched it's not going to happen. Every FD that Valleycom services gets dispatched on Fire 1.

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Rodentkj,

Thanks for the info. It's interesting that you mention the PSOPS talk groups. I don't believe they were included in the database I downloaded from another site, but I pulled them from a 2007 scanner directory and programmed them in (but thinking they were obsolete). Then, low and behold there was an incident in Bellevue last night (a metal srapper at a PSE substation). It was interesting - the incident had obviously been called in via phone, the stayed on a loop on both the PSOPS group and on Bellevue PD dispatch.

For my next question, is there anyway to decrypt (don't know if that's the proper term) the digital channels on Seattle PD's system? There's an op going on right now. I have a Uniden BCD-996XT, but have gotten far enough to investigate such channels.

Ok. This is off topic from the OP. But......


1. Don't get "digital" confused with "encrypted" communications. Those are two completely different subjects.
2. Digital and analog comms can both be unencrypted or encrypted.
2. Standard P25 digital unencrypted communications can be listened to using a digital capable scanner.
4. Regardless if it's analog or digital, if the data is encrypted you can not listen to it.

I can't comment on the specific incident or talk group being worked right now.

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Try this link. It is the most up to date, complete and accurate list that exists on the internet.

Also, the fire Admin talkgroups (like 30480) are very very rarely used. Each department only has their own TG(s) programmed in.