Lt. Daniel K. Kehoe, (Ret.)
Having acted in the Assistant Radio Communications role, I have considerable information about the radio systems used by the SVAA.
Pagers
It became apparent immediately at the start of the SVAA that crews would have to somehow be notified of a call. Given that they were volunteers and not acclimated to staying at the cramped Annex building for what were originally 12-hour shifts, it was decided that Motorola Minitor I pagers would be used. Enough were ordered that crews would swing by the Annex ahead of the start of their shift and pick up a pager from the charger, then return it after their shift the next day.
The pagers were on the Suffield Police frequency (155.73 Mhz) and could be muted until the dispatcher set off the EMS tones (two-tone sequence), which caused the pagers to alert and monitor. Crews would then hear the familiar, “Ambulance personnel call police headquarters”, yet the location of the call was often not relayed. Crews would find a phone and call the police non-emergency number (cell phones were not widely available until the 1990s), identify themselves as being on the crew and position (“I am the driver”) and tell the dispatcher if they were responding to the Annex, or directly to the scene if it were nearby.
The pagers gave crews freedom to roam around town doing errands (in uniform), and since in the early days, only about one call a day went out for the ambulance, it made for a very workable routine.
Towards the 1990s, Minitor II pagers replaced the aging Minitor I pagers which frequently had their receiver stages blown out by proximity to the high-powered ambulance radio transmitter. The Minitor II pagers featured two channels (the other being the fire department), but the SVAA continued to be paged on the main police frequency.
The first SVAA portable radio
In 1982, the SVAA purchased its first portable radio, affectionately referred to by Chief Debbie Pohanka as “the nerd box.” This Motorola HT440 was first primarily for use by the Chief during the day, but became part of the crew’s communications tools on the ambulance.
Ambulance Vehicle Radios
At its delivery, the Horton ambulance (EM-1) had a GE MASTR II 100-watt high-band mobile radio. This power, typical for mobiles of the day, was overkill for use in town, but the ambulance had to reach police dispatch from Hartford and Springfield area hospitals. The radio featured two channels: police, and also fire, which was rarely ever switched over to.
Besides calling enroute to a call, or arriving at and returning from the hospitals, the ambulance radio was also used to give patient status to the police dispatcher to be relayed to the approaching hospital. Since only the driver had access to the radio and was not directly involved with patient care, this “telephone game” style of relaying patient status was only moderately effective with scant information. But it did allow the hospital ER the chance to know we were coming in with a patient, and what to expect when we got there.
Motorola Maratrac
With the arrival of the new 139-2 ambulance donated by the Perraults in February 1990, the SVAA began a long history of using Motorola equipment, stepping away from the declining General Electric line. This ambulance featured a Motorola Maratrac high-band radio with up-to-date control head. It could accommodate up to 99 channels, and was programmed by computer. Jay Nash acted as Radio Communications Officer for the SVAA upon his arrival, and had previously worked for Motorola in West Hartford—thus we had someone very capable of choosing radios, implementing them, and even doing minor servicing.
CMED radio
When the SVAA joined the CMED North Central radio network (Med 1 – 10 channels) in 1983, a Motorola Micor radio was installed, with a telephone handset mic/speaker both in the driver cab and in the back for use by those with the patient. Our radio ID on this was “139-Bravo-1” initially, meaning Suffield (town 139) and Basic-level EMS (EMT-B was our highest certification at the time.) The “1” meant we were the first out of multiple ambulances. Later CMED changed the nomenclature to “139-Unit-1” as it was difficult to track the certification levels of some ambulance services. Our second ambulance out would sign on as “139-Unit-2” and so forth.
The SVAA gets its own frequency
In the late 1980s, the SVAA obtained its own frequency, 155.340 Mhz, callsign WPGN752, moving its operations off the Suffield Police frequency (except for paging). This was a commonly licensed EMS frequency, and was at the time shared with Holyoke EMS, though there was little conflict.
From the new console at Suffield Police station at 911 Mountain Road (opened 1988), the dispatcher could now communicate with SVAA crews on their own frequency.
Crew portable radios
A significant leap forward in SVAA communications came with the arrival of the 1989 grants tied to the new MacDougall prison complex constructed in the south end of Suffield in 1992-1993. Several Motorola HT600 (Radius P200 versions I believe) portables were put into service for use by the on-duty crew.
CentraCom radio console
In 1993, the SVAA acquired for $150 the old Motorola CentraCom console from CMED North Central when they moved from a room at John Dempsey Hospital in Farmington to space at the Oak Hill School in West Hartford in July 1993. This was installed in the radio room of the newly renovated Annex space, which now was solely used by the SVAA. One of the radios in the console was a high-band mobile which gave radio access to the crews.
Motorola Syntor mobile radios
Newer ambulances brought online during the 1990s were outfitted with Motorola Syntor radios whose heads could show the channel name (i.e., POLICE-1).
The Kenwood Repeater
Thanks to the efforts of Gary Fields and SVAA Radio Communications Officer Jay Nash, a Kenwood repeater was installed in the basement of the Main Firehouse on Mountain Road in 1995. While prior to this, communication between crew portables and the police department was satisfactory, this repeater greatly improved communications between members on portable around town.
This repeater featured a new frequency pair for the SVAA and was called “EMS-1”:
153.515 Mhz output and 158.235 Mhz input.
Motorola HT1250 portables
The aging HT600 (Radius P200) portables were replaced in the early 2000s by Motorola HT1250 portables with lapel mics, and for the first time, members of the new officer structure of the SVAA were issued their own radios.
Kenwood TK-series portables
A few years after the SVAA moved into its new headquarters at the Zak Center in 2007, the organization switched radio vendors and issued Kenwood TK-series portables (I believe it was TK-2180). These were viewed as more rugged and less expensive. They also mated well with the SVAA’s Kenwood repeater.
One FCC mandate that precipitated the change to the Kenwood radios was the narrowbanding rule that occurred in 2011. The Town of Suffield radios system-wide underwent an upgrade to narrowband and digital P25 capable equipment at the same time. The SVAA remained analog but narrowbanded at that time.
The TK-series radios were in use until the SVAA switched to a P25 digital radio system in 2018 with new Kenwood portables. I was not at the SVAA at that time, and have no further information about them or the current radios in use.
Antenna Tower at the Zak Center
In an effort to move radio communications closer in-house, a 90-foot radio tower was erected behind the Zak Center on Bridge Street in 2012-2013. An existing shed was moved further back to accommodate the new tower base in that location. I have no further information on this tower as I was not involved in the project.
Cellular phone radios (VOIP)
For a short time in early 2014, Chief Art Groux implemented a trial of Voice Over IP (VOIP) connections to the EMS1 repeater system. Using the Hollr app on cellphones, members could talk and listen over EMS1 using their phones as a radio.
This capability was functional, but not particularly robust with limited uptime owing to the requirement for a solid cellular signal to work. After a year or so it was discontinued.