BILL'S NOVA SCOTIA RADIO SITE

CAPE BRETON REGIONAL FIRE SERVICE (CBRFS)

This page was last updated on December 9, 2011 from a combination of information received at least five years ago and as well recent input from K.  Further information on missing frequencies is requested.   Please email to marscan1 AT gmail.com.

CBRM Fire is a semi-unified group of various volunteer and career departments.   While there is the umbrella designation Cape Breton Regional Fire Services, the individual stations are still identified as departments in their own right, rather than as stations of the CBRFS.    Behind the scenes there may be centralized procurement and other support services, but to the scanner listener the main point is that there is a centralized dispatch system and therefore there is a central knowledge of what the immediate situation and needs are throughout the CBRM.

Stations are dispatched from the dispatch centre located in the Grand Lake Road Emergency Services building, with 4 dispatchers serving both fire and police, and working for the CBRM EMO department.   Presumably they might also serve the local EMO staff.  It is not known if they also dispatch non-emergency departments of CBRM such as works and parks.

In the following chart, tones and input frequencies for repeaters are shown, if known.  Information is missing regarding the many apparently missing channels (based on the gaps in the channel names).  The CBRFS also has some capability to operate on the NSTMRS (mentioned above) and is increasingly using it for mutual aid and other joint operations such as training, water rescue and hazmat.  TMR talk group EO-E1 may be used for this purpose.

Please note that in addition to the stations listed below, there are two departments in Victoria County  and one in Richmond that cover small areas of CBRM: Ross Ferry Fire, Big Bras D'Or Fire and Loch Lomond Fire.  These are listed in the rural Cape Breton page of this site.

The following map shows the individual department coverage areas that together blanket the Cape Breton Regional Municipality.   The version of the map shown here does not have high resolution and therefore you will not be able to see detail of the map or of the list of departments.   I have provided below the map a key to the red numbers on the map, and if you can read those numbers you will get a good idea of the location and coverage area of that department.   Departments adjacent to CBRM in other counties are also shown on the map, but have a red number only if they provide service on a mandated basis to part of CBRM.   

This map in high resolution is available here.  When you access this map choose the size/resolution you want.  At this point I am unable to save the map at high resolution to post here for you, but if anyone knows how to do that, please let me know. 

List of Individual Departments making up the CB Regional Fire Service or otherwise serving areas within CBRM:

* former Stn 2 Ashby is closed with fire coverage assumed by the other 2 Sydney stations.

Paging and Communications

Stations in various areas of CBRM are grouped together for the use of frequencies.   Some of the departments may have in addition installed channels from other areas but this is not thought to be the norm.

• In each group Channel 1 is the paging frequency as well as the primary channel for two-way communications with dispatch.  

• Channel 2 for each group is the simplex use of the Channel 1 output frequency ("talkaround") if Channel one is a repeater.  If it isn't, there is no Channel 2 for that area. frequency, and my speculation is that it would be the talkaround (simplex) variation of the Channel 1 repeater output frequency if in fact Channel 1 is a repeater.   

• Channels 3 and up are working/ops/tactical/fireground channels and are invariably simplex.   The number of these vary depending on the potential need in the various areas.   

Note that the area groups are titled Alpha through Kilo but there are no Hotel, India or Juliett listed.   It could be speculated that Southside Boularderie, Marion Bridge, and Christmas Island that each operate on single separate frequencies could account for the missing "letters" but this is purely speculation. 

The Water Rescue Unit is composed of the Glace Bay, New Waterford, Sydney Mines and Albert Bridge departments.  A page for this unit will be made simultaneously on the various paging frequencies encompassing these departments.

Pages for the HAZMAT team are made on all or most of the paging frequencies simultaneously as members are from all over CBRM, but once the unit is in operation it communicates with the dispatch centre as if it was an ALPHA station however it must be at least speculated that when in more remote areas of CBRM it would use the local frequencies).

In areas where there is a Channel 3 and a Channel 4 but only one has frequency information entered, it is not actually known for certain that the correct frequency is entered beside the appropriate Channel number.   For example in Charlie Group, a Channel 4 is listed with frequency information but it may be that this frequency information should go with Channel 3.

The term "talk group" as used here is a group of stations sharing a set of frequencies.   This is entirely different from that term's use to designate virtual channels in a trunked radio system.

It is not known why there is not a Hotel, India, or Juliett group!  (one possible idea is that these are the Marion Bridge, Christmas Island and Southside Boularderie frequencies.)

There is no longer a Sydney Station 2.

On the official website, accessed in April 2011 the stations were divided by area as follows:

Central:  Sydney Ashby, Sydney Central, Sydney Whitney Pier, Sydney River, Grand Lake Rd, South Bar, Westmount
East: Dominion, Glace Bay, New Waterford, Reserve Mines
North: North Sydney, Sydney Mines

The others were listed simply as "Rural".