How do you name units?

[Coach Hohman]

Our system is rather simplistic....there are seven ambulance districts in our county. From alphabetical order they are numbered 101-201-301...etc. If there is a Paramedic onboard we are Medic 201, and if it is all basics/intermediates, we are Squad 201. That way our county ALS units know if we're a basic squad en route to a potentially ALS call. Our county director has a fly-car and is EMS-1 and the assistant director has a county pickup truck with L/S and is EMS-2...simple and easy to distinguish. The fire departments are different...where I work we have Engine 10, Brush 14, Tanker 13...etc. They just use the town name and the vehicle name when callin dispatch...easy system

[Richard B the EMT]

There are some services who start the numbers, as mentioned, by order of acquisition, but in an attempt to not seem to be a new service, will start with something usually above 30. I usually see something starting with a unit 101, and have seen some starting as high as a 600 series.

Some keep going up in numbers, others will replace a vehicle, and the new vehicle will get the old one's number. While the number on the side of an FDNY ambulance is only a shop number, for purposes of the maintainance crews, I personally have seen a vehicle 57, over several replacements of a particular year's series of vehicles, at several FDNY EMS stations, each one a new one, first in the Bronx, then in Manhattan, and the most recent one is now working from my station, but is in the ajoining response district to mine.

[Lone Star]

When I worked in Detroit, our service used the numbers 6xx for non emergency units, 7xx for ambulances.

To signify ALS or BLS units, they were preceeded by Alpha or Bravo (for Basic units) for example, the station I worked out of ran B711 until it was wrecked. ( I was in the hospital with my aneurysm when that happened, so I had nothing to do with it!)

the xx was usually a sequencial number to signify the number in rotation when the unit was purchased. If a unit was taken out of service and replaced with a new model, the number was reassigned to the new unit.

The 'sub company' in another county started its units at 350, again with the prefix of Alpha or Bravo.

[stcommodore]

ya'll got some pretty complicated ways of saying things...

[Niftymedi911]

All ambulances are ALS and we're the single provider in Lee County:

LCEMS: They are called "Medic" They start at Medic 1 end at Medic 43.

LCFD's: Each department was assigned a number 10-200. Like for example San Carlos FD was assigned 50. Meaning SCFD sta 51 is Engine 51, Rescue 51, Truck 51, Brush 51, Medic 9. Sta 52 is Engine 52, Rescue 52, Medic 33 Lehigh is 100. Station 101 houses Engine 101, Rescue 101, Brush 101 and so forth. They're talking about re-numbering our units to match the FD's station and so forth.

EMS used to be separate from FD on dispatch. We would have our own talkgroup and separate station tones and FD would have South and North talkgroups.

Lee County has a new radio system is operation. All LCFD and LCEMS base station radios are set on Tac 1 also known as the alert channel. We're toned out simultaneously. EMS tones and then FD tones drop for Medical calls, and FD toned and then EMS for Fire calls on Tac-1. The Alert dispatcher (The Alpha Dispatcher as we call it ) then assigns either Tac 2 (North Operations Talkgroup) or Tac 3 (South Operations Talkgroup) to the responding units. The units then utilize that talkgroup for the remainder of the incident. Whether it's to call for updates from Lee Control or to talk with FD about who's in command etc on a MVC or HazMat call. Once the incident is complete all units then switch back to Tac-1 where the unit monitors for future assignments while returning to station. ( closest units respond, EMS or FD). Now if there is an MCI or any further incidents which require a separate tac channel, it is requested and then assigned (Tac 5 through 25). A separate dispatcher will then monitor that Tac for emergency traffic.

[timboyle]

Yes, good old Monmouth County. I worked in the county radio back in 1998 when MONOC was still dispatched out of there. This was back when there was only about 9 ALS units for the entire county, on an over-staffed day. I always ended up working with 5952 or 5956. I guess they changed their numbers since they went to their own dispatching.

Where I work we have call signs of rank followed by badge number...."Deputy1", "Brigade1". Our command is 151 (it's a lobby fire command station) and our radio room is just "Base". FDNY will come up on our radios when they respond in with their own system of call signs. Only FDNY fire uses our repeater radio, EMS usually doesn't. Although we have about 2 to 4 ems calls on an average day. The most we had was 10 in one day I believe.

[Richard B the EMT]

It just occurred to me, the companies that number the ambulances in order of their getting them, but don't start at 1? They may be trying to give the appearance that their fleets are larger than they are, to try to drum up business.

[Expotential]

Our Ambulances are identified in my city by <Station number>2<ambuliance number>

so my station is 16

our ambuliances are

1620

1621

1622

1623

1624

and 1625

some stations that have more than 10 will go into the 30's (even though none of our stations EVER have more than 4 or 5 running at one time)

Squad trucks (with the jaws and all the fun tools) are

SQUAD-9

SQUAD-14

and SQUAD-16

Search and rescue is

SAR-1

SAR-2

SAR-3

our Supervisors are

EMS-<Vehicle number (based off superiority)>

so EMS-5

EMS-6

EMS-7

our ALS interceptor vehicles (little crown vickies) are:

Zone-<Station number>

For Fire:

Engine:

E-<station number>

if there is more than one engine at a station we signify them as E-<station>-<truck> (like E-16-1 or E-16-2)

Ladder

L-<station number>

Batalion chief

B-<truck number>

I am unsure how they label the marine units and the ATV's (I live in a beach town)