How do you talk to another agency via radio?

[EmergencyManager6]

OK, So CAP rolls up to a disaster in a small community. We have been requested by the County Emergency Mgt folks.  They are tasking us to fly quite a few photo missions in the aftermath or a large scale tornado. 

They would also like real time comms between the aircraft and their Fire Chief, So he can coordinate the response into the area to determine if there are any pockets in outlaying areas, were survivors would need help.    Normally how would CAP make this happen?

Now the Fire Chief has requested that our aircraft coordinate directly with the SAR assets on the ground.  What would you do?

[jks19714]

In my state (Delaware), this wouldn't be an issue.  We have state-owned 800 MHz radios with mutual-aid talkgroups programmed along with several DelDOT groups.  We use these radios when we fly missions for Delaware DOT.  They even provided a CAP talkgroup for our use.

[RVT]

Now the Fire Chief has requested that our aircraft coordinate directly with the SAR assets on the ground.  What would you do?

We would have a Liason officer with the ground assets who would have a CAP portable radio.  Our aircraft are not set up to talk to them directly so that's just not going to happen.  The crew is not authorised to coordinate with them directly anyway.

Even if we could, we would have to go off the CAP radio frequency to do it, and we can't when a mission is in progress.

[cap235629]

hand the scanner a portable radio from the fire department and drive on

[arajca]

There's a reason we have IR1 - IR9 programmed in the radios. THese are interoperability channels.

[cap235629]

There's a reason we have IR1 - IR9 programmed in the radios. THese are interoperability channels.

and not in all CAP radios

[Al Sayre]

Turn to State Wide Fire Band and launch...

[RADIOMAN015]

Depends upon your agreement with that specific agency.  In the past our wing has had the State Emergency Management channels programmed into both the base/mobile radios & aircraft radios.   I think when Maine & New Hampshire wings when performing forest fire patrols they have access to the forestry radio system to directly communicate with responding control centers and also responding units.

In an emergency it is likely that the agency you are supporting will make some sort of arrangement to provide radio access to their system likely with one of their radios lent to you.  Sometimes unless you have a specific type of radio, the agency does not want you on their channels, because of certain signalling requirements (e.g. the dispatch console operator can see the programmed unit # of the radio on a display).   

There are "poor man ways" (cross band system receive only) to also communicate but unless both agencies have skilled communicators on duty with appropriate equipment it might not work.  (Use to be interesting monitoring two rural counties in Michigan that had a receiver on each others transmit frequency (both were low band VHF) and would communicate that way without an issue)     

Our wing is working on developing a small CAP coordination team (1 to 3 people,  air ops, radio operator, etc) that would be dispatched into the community being assisted, but in most natural disasters that would be difficult, so my guess is that since every community in our state has a state provided base radio to talk with the regional emergency management facility, likely one of those channels will be utilized directly by our aircraft.

FEMA has a book on radio interoperability that is good to review and have knowledge about and may give you the knowledge to ask the right questions of officials.  You have to remember that when you are dealing with public safety operations personnel they only know the channel designations to go to and don't really don't know the frequencies.  So if you tell them to go to AIR 1, it's likely they will be on AIR 1 but it won't be on our AIR 1

National Headquarters has to approve the release of our frequencies to anyone out side of CAP.
RM 

[wuzafuzz]

First choice:
Find a qualified Communications Unit Leader and assign them to coordinate.  They talk turkey with the non-CAP radio folks and together they determine which channels you have in common.  All the CAP folks use their radios as determined by the CUL.  If there are no common channels the CUL may have to get creative.  In any case, try to let the comm folks do the comm stuff, while the other incident staff folks do their jobs.

Or:
Assign CAP radio operators to liaison with the fire chief and ground SAR teams.  That doesn't have to mean we send CAP folks with every ground team, but someone working relay might work (CAP radio <-----> SAR radio).  However, don't setup a system that might keep the CAP IC or AOBD out of the loop.

Or:
According to CAPR 100-1 section 5-6 non-CAP members can operate CAP radios under the supervision of a qualified CAP member.  In limited circumstances they can operate a CAP radio without direct supervision.  The latter isn't ideal, but it can be done if no other options are available.

I've seen missions go goofy because no one called a CUL.  CUL's should know things that a lot of qualified MRO's don't.  Even if there is no CUL at the ICP, a phone call to a CUL can answer a lot of questions.  Most CUL's I know are readily available via phone, cell phone. email, Skype, etc.

[Major Lord]

I needed to speak to the USCG on a mission, and went on Marine 16 calling " U.S. Cast Guard San Francisco, this is United States Air Force Auxiliary SAR team, Call sign Yosemite 222" They were a little confused at first,  ( they are kind of squidly) buy they caught on fast that I was not a civilian boat calling for help, but another federal agency requesting assistance. I thought that throwing in "Civil Air Patrol" would have been just too many words; They know who USAF is, and they know what "Aux" means, so we were ahead of the game. the only glitch  was that my radio did  not having any Marine channels other than 16, we had to do our business and the call frequency. It would be a good idea to make sure our radios have the Coast Guard and CG AUX ( As I recall,its channel 22A) which my ancient Yaesu did not have in its little brain.

One of my friends called a police dispatcher from a police car and used his ham radio call sign to report the injury accident. It was just force of habit, but he did not let protocol stand in the way of effective communications. Picking up a radio and yelling "HELP" into the microphone can be exactly the right thing to do.

Major Lord
Extra Class ham, GROL with Radar endorsement, Etc.

[arajca]

There's a reason we have IR1 - IR9 programmed in the radios. THese are interoperability channels.

and not in all CAP radios

It should be in all the EF Johnsons. National set up a specific zone for them.

[RRLE]

my radio did  not having any Marine channels other than 16, we had to do our business and the call frequency. It would be a good idea to make sure our radios have the Coast Guard and CG AUX ( As I recall,its channel 22A)

Channel 16 is the Distress, Safety and General Calling Frequency. It is where you would first call for help.

Channel 22A is the USCG (not Aux) Liaison Channel. The USCG will usually move a communication here after the first contact is made on CH16.

The FCC controls the non-US government maritime radio channels. For the FCC list see FCC Ship Radio Stations VHF Channel Listing

The USCG Aux uses USCG and US government VHF channels that are not on that list. They can be found on USCG Navigation Center US VHF Channels

The channels the Aux uses will vary by area.

The "A" after some channels is important it designates the US frequency which will vary from the international (open seas) frequency. Most modern radios can be programmed for the US or international frequency.

A Big Word of Caution. Never, ever contact the USCG or anyone else on a marine channel unless you are on a boat or it is an emergency. It is illegal for the general public to use marine radios on land or in the air for anything but emergencies.

[lordmonar]

OK, So CAP rolls up to a disaster in a small community. We have been requested by the County Emergency Mgt folks.  They are tasking us to fly quite a few photo missions in the aftermath or a large scale tornado. 

They would also like real time comms between the aircraft and their Fire Chief, So he can coordinate the response into the area to determine if there are any pockets in outlaying areas, were survivors would need help.    Normally how would CAP make this happen?

Now the Fire Chief has requested that our aircraft coordinate directly with the SAR assets on the ground.  What would you do?

1.   Long before the incident your wing director of comm and you wing director of operations have been in contact with all the local ES organisations in your state (fire, sar, LE) and have coordinated and gotten all the proper MOUs required by law and regulations.
2.  At the incident your CUL developes the COMM plan.  He works with the IC/LO/PSC to figure out who is communicting how.  The COMM PLAN is part of each crew breifing.

3.  Prior to take off the crew programs the proper freqs and other data into the spare channels (if they are not already preprogrammed in 1 above).

4.  The crew flies the mission and uses the radio in the same way as they have been trained in CAP.

[PHall]

1.   Long before the incident your wing director of comm and you wing director of operations have been in contact with all the local ES organisations in your state (fire, sar, LE) and have coordinated and gotten all the proper MOUs required by law and regulations.

That's a pretty big assumption and I'm willing to bet a large amount of money that it hasn't been done.

So what's your "Plan B"?

[lordmonar]

1.   Long before the incident your wing director of comm and you wing director of operations have been in contact with all the local ES organisations in your state (fire, sar, LE) and have coordinated and gotten all the proper MOUs required by law and regulations.

That's a pretty big assumption and I'm willing to bet a large amount of money that it hasn't been done.

So what's your "Plan B"?

My plan "b" is to do 2-4 with out worring about the regulations.

The problem I have seen is that everyone else is in the same boat as we are as far as it comes to comm.  The IT geeks don't share information.  No one know what freqs they are on (it's channel 12 here on my hand held!).   

In a pinch....have the supported unit just give you a hand held.....(did that when flying in the Grand Canyon working with the National Parks Service.)

[srg9832]

The FCC has set aside some federally assigned common channels. They can be found in the "National Interoperability Field Operations Guide" (NIFOG for short).

Some states have Mutual aid channels. In montana the state labeled the channels by colors instead of the funky national name so everyone in montana knows, when you switch to yellow, exactly what everyone is doing and no one gets confused.

Your wing communications officer should have the ability to know what he/she can program in the NIFOG.

NIFOG Link:
http://www.ncdhhs.gov/dhsr/EMS/pdf/NIFOG.pdf

[cap235629]

There's a reason we have IR1 - IR9 programmed in the radios. THese are interoperability channels.

and not in all CAP radios

It should be in all the EF Johnsons. National set up a specific zone for them.

They are not in the code plug sent out by National.  There is room for them but they are not part of the programming that is sent out.  If your wing has them it is because your DC added them.

[arajca]

Interesting. As DC, they were in the code plug I got from national. Perhaps your DC took them out?

[cap235629]

Interesting. As DC, they were in the code plug I got from national. Perhaps your DC took them out?

I am the DC and if you go to the DC download page and download any of the EF Johnson codeplugs, they are not there

[EmergencyManager6]

Can you site were CAP is authorized to use the IR freq?   

IR freq's are for Federal Incident response ONLY.  Im pretty sure CAP cant just use an IR freq anytime they want...