Communications

Alarms

Alarms, Fire, EMS, Marine, are all called into Ridley Dispatch in Ridley Township. This system is state of the art, and is the enhanced computerized 911 system. Some fire alarm systems are connected directly to the fire department and terminate at an annunciator panel which sets off the fire alarm and the paging system. All telephone and radio calls are recorded at Ridley dispatch and at Eddystone FD.

Radio Transmitters (repeaters)

Reliable 2 way radio communications is maintained through the use of six radio repeaters. A repeater is a transceiver which receives on one frequency and re-transmits the audio on another frequency which is received by all radios on the system, greatly increasing the range and reliability. Two repeaters, channel 1 and 5 are located at the fire station. Antennas are mounted atop a 60ft tower at the station. Three repeaters channels 3, 4, and 7 are located atop PECO energy Eddystone Generating Station. One repeater channel 6 is located atop Swarthmore College. Channels 5 & 6 also are equipped with telephone interconnect to make and receive telephone calls. Channel 3 is shared with other local fire departments. Channel 7 is an exclusive use T-Band frequency and is a multi tone coded community repeater, shared with the Eddystone Police and Highway Dept. Each department has its own channel within the single repeater frequency.

Pagers

Most members are issued a Motorola UHF stored voice pager. This pager alerts the member with a series of loud beeps and also stores the voice message for repeat playback in case of missed message announcement or location and type of alarm. The stored message will remain in memory until the pager is turned off or an additional alarm is received.

Radios & Portables

All Line officers are issued radios. Some of the members also have their own radios. Radios with keypads can access the telephone interconnect, they can also initiate the ambulance or fire alarm and paging system right from their radio. Most radios are set up to function as a pager when channel 2 is selected.    

Radio console on Fire Boat

Radio Frequencies

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