CFA Split and Fire Rescue Victoria

[Boort8720]

Good morning all,

As you're all probably aware, the government has decided to make the CFA a volunteer only organisation. The CFA's paid firefighters will now form a new organisation under the name of Fire Rescue Victoria.

What does this mean for the RMR and CFA database? Will the current CFA database be expanded using their currently unused channels, or create an entirely new network?

This should be an interesting discussion as the changes unfold.

Regards,

[X-Firey]

I don't think anything will really change communications wise.

However having said that I've always had a theory that Districts 8, 13,14 and 21 would transition to the MMR network as opposed to the RMR due to the fact that those areas are already covered by the MMR network. We must remember that these two networks are going to provide seamless statewide communications at some point...

I think the days of the 'VKN8' callsign are nearly over and both services will use the callsign 'VicFire' as per the original plan.

As stated this will be interesting. We will just have to sort out the facts from the fiction.

[Blake]

I saw the press release.
Very interesting to say the least.
Only time will tell.
Hopefully it'll stay the same.
Cheers.

[Simon Snorkel]

I don't think they will go to the MMR personally, work is already happening in the background for those districts to be on the RMR. That being said MMR and RMR share the same network core so in one sense it's the same network just split to UHF and VHF sites.

It will be interesting to see what does happen as slipped into the announcement was the creation of another agency for infrastructure covering facilities and equipment. The contentious eba not only covers career firefighters but also covers protective equipment and comms as well as others, so they may go to FRV or ESIA. Interesting days to come.

[madmarto]

IMO unless they roll out the MMR to the entire state, I don't see much changing on the comms side of things. At a minimum they will need two radios or dual-band in the FRV trucks in case a regional one is needed for step-up to the metro area. I'm more curious about the signage on the trucks - will the regional integrated stations have multiple vehicles (ie, a CFA pumper for the vols and an FRV one for the career staff?). Will FRV use CFA fireground channels in regional Vic or FRV ones?
This whole situation has always has been a can of worms, and time will tell how much common sense remains in those overseeing/controlling the changeover.