Fire and Emergency Services Authority, Western Australia
Fire and Emergency Services Authority of Western Australia (FESA) was formed in 1999, bringing together more than 30,000 emergency service volunteers and 900 career fire fighters around the State.
The establishment of FESA has brought together the following multiple organizations under one board: Fire and Rescue Service , Bush Fire Service, State Emergency Service, Volunteer Marine Rescue Services, Emergency Management Services, Community Safety Services.
“It was pure magic to have Sea Rescue, SES and Police all talking on common ground. Before, we had to station an SES vehicle on top of a hill and (manually) relay messages. Now a vehicle can be stationed and used as a repeater and release manpower to other areas … which is always at a premium.”
Alec Cull ESM, Operations Officer, Peaceful Bay Sea Rescue Group
The Challenge
Prior to the establishment of FESA, individual services operated radio communications in isolation and on different networks. Both Fire Services and the State Emergency Services were experiencing network congestion.
Additionally, a lack of radio interoperability between FESA divisions and other emergency services organizations throughout Western Australia, including Department of Environment and Conservation (DEC), had been identified as a problem in numerous post-emergency incident reviews, reports and coroner inquiries.
FESA was required to consolidate its radio communications technology to ensure that all its services could communicate throughout Western Australia; a state 2.5 million sq km in size. To achieve this, FESA needed to consolidate operational radio networks to VHF High Band or UHF, while incorporating UHF CB channels. Therefore, dual band radios were a requirement to allow for access to both UHF and VHF networks within one vehicle.
The FESA solution also considered the inclusion of Radio over Internet Protocol (RoIP) enabling an extension of radio voice and control signals over FESA’s Wide Area (computing) Network.
The Solution
Tait and FESA worked together from the early stages of the project to develop a solution that would improve the safety of FESA staff and volunteers and streamline radio communications throughout emergency services personnel in Western Australia.
Tait created two dual band radios with bright green and yellow control heads to enable users to easily distinguish the correct radio. The yellow VHF High to UHF dual band radios are installed in all FESA, DEC and volunteer operational vehicles. The Green VHF Mid to High band units are installed in offices and stations to be used primarily as a base station radio for a seamless migration to the VHF High Band spectrum.
In addition to the different control head colors, the volume level can be different in the two radios so that a user could tell which radio the communications were coming through without needing to look at the radio, all without compromising the audio clarity of the received message.
The dual band radios are designed with four functionalities: single band receive, transmit; dual band receive, single band transmit; dual band receive, dual band transmit; and cross band repeat. A custom interface cable was developed to allow the radios to work as a cross band mode, which can extend coverage and minimize the impact of dead spots.
Each dual band mobile is equipped to interface with a Global Positioning System (GPS) unit. GPS data is appended to the radio message every time the radio is used allowing for vehicle location tracking. With the installation of the RoIP, vehicles can be tracked state-wide ultimately improving staff safety and the coordination of emergency response resources.
To overcome operational issues related to their environment, which includes temperatures of up to 80°C inside a vehicle, Tait developed a high-temperature display option to enable the mobile screen to be easily viewed despite the heat or bright sunlight.
The Outcome
The dual band radios have undergone a phased rollout which has allowed for FESA to stage costs over a number of years. This came with the guarantee that the first TM8000 radio made would be identical to the last radio, even if new features and functionality have been added. More recently FESA has acquired Tait hand-held control heads and transportable mobiles to complement the dual band radios.
