Bill's Nova Scotia Radio Site

CENTRAL FIRE DISPATCH SERVICES

 Last updated March 15, 2013

To some extent the lists of agencies served by dispatch centres does vary over time as contracts end and services are renegotiated.   Please let me know of any discrepancies.

This page is not intended to list the frequencies of the various fire departments being served.  For those please see my regional fire pages (via this access page).   In some cases I have listed radio frequencies for link or input radios located at the dispatch centre itself.

Dispatch centres are publicly or privately operated entities that provide dispatch and/or operational services for public service agencies, mostly fire departments.  Larger municipalities generally self-dispatch, for example Halifax, Truro and Cape Breton RM, but some sizeable towns do contract out to outside agencies.    Dispatch centres should not be confused with PSAP’s which are the facilities that take calls from the public on 911. There are four PSAP’s in Nova Scotia: Valley Dispatch in Kentville, RCMP Telecoms in Truro, the IES in Dartmouth, and the CBRM Dispatch Ctr. IES and CBRM serve their respective municipalities. Valley serves the western part of the province and RCMP serve the remainder of the province (Central, North and rural CB). Each of these is also a dispatch centre but they also send requests for service to the other dispatch centres including those for fire, police and ambulance. Thus in the southwest area for example, Valley Dispatch PSAP will send calls to Scotia Business Centre, Yarmouth Dispatch, RCMP Dispatch, Digby Dispatch, EHS Dispatch, Kentville Police and possibly others, but it will receive calls from the RCMP for the fire services it dispatches in, for example, Cumberland County. Note that in an overflow situation or if a PSAP goes out of service, 911 calls are automatically routed to another PSAP.

The main topic of this page is the fire dispatch centres in the province. There are a number of facebook pages and/or websites that report fire calls in the province. This list may not be complete.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Pictou-C ... ts&fref=ts

http://www.facebook.com/ColchesterCount ... ts&fref=ts

https://www.facebook.com/CumberlandCoun ... ts&fref=ts

https://www.facebook.com/NSFireDispatch ... ts&fref=ts (includes HRFE)

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Dahl-Dispatch/123025764429644 (South shore focus)

The last mentioned also presented at www.dahldispatch.webs.com

The information below comes from many listeners around the province.  Invariably dispatch centres not only actually dispatch fire departments to incidents, they also conduct tests on a daily basis at or around pre-determined times, sometimes more than once per day.    It soon becomes clear who dispatches who.  Additionally all or most of these dispatch agencies are listed in the federal government TAFL along with the frequencies that they use. A great deal of the information for the south shore and Yarmouth area is courtesy of Doug, with updates in 2013 from Evan.

The four dispatch centres serving the southwest area of Nova Scotia (Valley, Digby, Yarmouth and Scotia) to some extent use the TMR to communicate with fire departments, and in doing so generally use the EO-W talk groups. The province (PSFCO) has authorized them to each use one of the four EO-W’s.

1. VALLEY DISPATCH .   Valley Dispatch is located at 217 Belcher Street in Kentville.

Valley Dispatch appears to be the largest privately owned and operated dispatch centre in Nova Scotia.   Not only does it dispatch more VFD's than anyone else, it is also a PSAP 911 call-taking centre and in this capacity serves Kentville and the surrounding area but can take overflows from elsewhere when required.   Reports and TAFL listings indicate that they dispatch the following departments but this list is not guaranteed to be 100% accurate.

Annapolis County	Colchester County	Cumberland County	Hants County	Kings County	Lunenburg County	Queens County
Annapolis Royal Bridgetown Lawrencetown Margaretville Middleton Nictaux Port Lorne Springfield	Bass River Bible Hill Brookfield Cobequid Debert Economy Five Islands Great Village Hilden North river Onslow-Belmont Salmon River Special Hazards Stewiacke Tatamagouche Upper Stewiacke Valley-Kemptown	Advocate Collingwood FPW (Fox Pt, Port Greville, Wards Brook) Joggins Leicester Oxford Parrsboro Pugwash River Hebert Shinimicas Southampton Tidnish Truemanville Wallace Wentworth Westchester	Brooklyn Indian Brook Elmsdale Gore Hantsport Kennetcook Lantz Maitland Milford Nine Mile River Noel Rawdon Shubie Summerville Walton Shore Windsor Can also communicate with Enfield Fire (dispatched by HRM)	Aylesford Berwick Canning Greenwich Halls harbor Kentville Kingston New Minas Port Williams Waterville Wolfville Valley Search & Rescue Kentville Public Works	New Ross	Charleston Greenfield Liverpool Mill Village North Queens Port Midway West Queens First Responders

Valley connects with its contracted agencies either by telephone dial-up or by direct or linked radio inputs to the agency's system or via IMRS repeaters.   It is not clear if Valley can actually communicate in a two-way manner with agencies that have dial-up paging; however it does have a TMR console and can communicate with departments on the EO talk groups as well as private fire department talk groups possessed by some departments.  The following chart indicates as of August 2012 the direct radio links from Valley in Kentville to the agencies with whom it does have two way contact.   This array of links requires a variety of beam antennas at the Valley Dispatch site.

Valley Dispatch Direct Radio Inputs, with Transmitting Antenna at 217 Belcher St, Kentville
Transmit	Receive	Comment
138.135	142.125	Link to Barr Settlement East Hants Repeater on 154.46
138.33	142.32	Link to Sugarloaf Cumberland County repeater system
138.81	142.8	Link to Barr Settlement for onwards to Colchester County system
148.885	143.625	Direct input to Garland IMRS GSS rptr, for Valley Search & Rescue
149.32	154.34	Direct input to Hantsport Fire Dept repeater on Bog Rd, South Mtn.
149.53	153.86	Direct input to Kentville Fire Dept repeater on Canaan Mtn
152.405	152.405	Simplex with New Minas VFD
153.86	153.86	Simplex with Kentville VFD
154.13	151.805	Direct input to DND IMRS fire repeater for Bridgetown VFD
154.28	151.325	F.P.W. FIRE DEPARTMENT Cumberland (might be obsolete)
154.8	152.915	Direct input to Aylesford VFD repeater on Canaan Mtn
155.58	151.46	Direct input to Windsor VFD repeater at Martock
155.76	154.43	Direct input to Wolfville VFD repeater at 1121 Ridge Rd.
157.425	151.85	Direct input to Kingston VFD repeater at Stronach Mtn.
157.665	152.09	Direct input to Middleton VFD repeater on Gates Mtn
157.98	152.405	Direct input to New Minas VFD repeater on Canaan Mtn
158.64	153.125	Direct input to Greenwich VFD repeater on Canaan Mtn
158.805	153.77	Direct input to E Hants Paging transmitter at Barr Settlement
159.525	155.985	Direct input to Waterville VFD repeater at Woodville
169.35	165.66	Direct input to Canning VFD repeater on North Mtn
172.02	169.125	Direct input to Kenville Public Works Dept repeater on Prospect Rd
414.925	419.925	Link to Clairmont, Cumberland for Oxford VFD's 169.44 rptr
453.3625	453.3625	Simplex link to Summerville VFD, operating on 154.71 simplex
464.1375	464.1375	Simplex link to Etter Hill for Brooklyn VFD 152.30 repeater

2. DIGBY  DISPATCH    The list below is not considered to be complete.  Please email updates to me      marscan1 AT gmail.com

Clare Rural Municipality	Digby Rural Municipality	Annapolis County
Southville New Tusket & Havelock Weymouth St Bernard Little Brook	Smiths Cove Digby Digby Neck Freeport Tiverton Westport Bear River Brighton & Barton Plympton & Gilberts Cove	Annapolis Royal PD (`432`)

3. SCOTIA BUSINESS CENTRE

    This centre is located in Bridgewater and dispatches all departments in the Lunenburg County with the exception of New Ross (dispatched by Valley Dispatch) and as well some in Shelburne County.   This list is provided in January 2009 directly by Scotia Business Centre.   TAFL lists the following frequencies for SBC:   154.22 to activate the 152.21 Sherwood fire grid repeater, 154.34 simplex to communicate with Bridgewater Fire (and possibly other Bridgewater town divisions), and as well a paging frequency of 167.1 MHz.     It is thought  that other than this direct use of radio, SBC activates other paging transmitters via landlines.   Note that Hubbards was taken over by Scotia in 2010 after several years of service by HRM. Several departments were transferred from Roseway Dispatch when it ceased operations in 2012.

Blandford Blockhouse Bridgewater CGC (Churchover Gunning Cove) Chester Chester Basin Conquerall Bank Cornwall Dayspring Harbour (NE & NW) Hebbs Cross Hebbville Hemford

Hubbards Indian Point Ingomar/Roseway Italy Cross Jordan Falls LaHave Lapland Little Harbour Lockeport Lunenburg Mahone Bay Martins River Midville

New Germany Northfield Oakhill Petite Riviere Pleasantville Riverport Sable River Tancook Tri District (Bakers Settlement, Newcombville, Chelsea) United Communities Walden Western Shore Wileville

4. YARMOUTH CONTROL

For frequency details and some information regarding links from Yarmouth Control to the departments click here.

Yarmouth County	Shelburne County
East Kemptville East Pubnico Eel Brook West Pubnico Amirault’s Hill Lake Vaughan (Belleville) Wedgeport-Plymouth Carleton Quinan Port Maitland Valley & District (Deerfield) Lakes & District (Lake George) Little River Islands & District (Surettes Island) South Ohio Yarmouth	Barrington Shelburne (town) Island & Barrington Passage Port Latour Woods Harbour/Shag Harbour Port Clyde Middle/Upper Ohio

5. STELLARTON POLICE DEPT

    Stellarton PD not only dispatches itself, it also serves many fire departments in the Pictou area:

Stellarton Fire Westville Fire Alma Fire West River Fire Plymouth Fire Eureka Fire

Caribou Fire Blue Mountain Fire Linacy Fire East River Valley Fire Merigomish Fire

Thorburn Fire Barneys River Fire Scotsburn Fire River John Fire Pictou Landing Reserve Fire Pictou Fire

6. NEW GLASGOW POLICE DEPT

New Glasgow PD dispatches a few VFD's in the Pictou area:  Trenton, Little Harbour, Pictou Landing, Abercrombie

 7. CANSO DISPATCH

Canso Dispatch is operated by the Strait Area Mutual Assistance Association.   Information is needed regarding the dispatch location; however it is thought to be a dial up system in which the dispatcher uses a land-line to connect to a remote paging site.   All sites are on 153.920 MHz and are simulcast.   According to TAFL the page sites are: Mabou, Whycocomagh, Oban, Fairmont and Evanston.   This service covers areas of Antigonish and Inverness Counties.      Check the fire frequency page for departments involved.  Any department in that region served by 153.920 is part of this system.

8. HALIFAX REGIONAL MUNICIPALITY

    HRM operates its own dispatch centre (referred to in-house as Integrated Emergency Services).   This is the PSAP 911 call-taking centre for the Halifax Regional Municipality and as well dispatches both the HRM Fire Service and the Halifax Regional Police, and the Halifax Detachment of the RCMP.      Additionally the IES dispatches the following VFD's lying outside HRM:    Mount Uniacke and Enfield.      All fire stations are paged out on VHF(151 to 154 range) with a backup system on conventional 800 MHz transmitters. Following paging, communications with the centre are on the TMR.  

9. SHUBIE RADIO

    Shubie Radio is is operated as a unit of the provincial Department of Transportation and Infrastructure Renewal.  In the past it was part of the Department of Natural Resources adn still does at least some dispatch work for that department. and also dispatches some of the smaller components of the provincial government such as Vehicle Compliance, Motor Carrier (bus inspectors and Justice.  At one time they were quite active in coordinating the use of the NS Integrated Mobile Radio System when it was a linked system with several networks.   Shubie Radio currently pages the following volunteer fire departments, presumably by dial-up paging: East River St Mary's, Sherbrooke, Harbourview, St Mary's District, Aspen, Glen Elg. 

10. EHS DISPATCH

This is a private in-house dispatch service for the province's ambulance system.  It is not known to dispatch any fire departments but does at times communicate directly with fire department medical first responders via the MFR talk groups of the TMR.  EHS Dispatch is based in Burnside and covers the whole province and is exclusively on the TMR.  For more information see my EHS webpage.

11.  RCMP DISPATCH

This is a Truro-based in-house dispatch service for all RCMP services in Nova Scotia except for municipal policing in HRM and Metro Traffic Services, which are dispatched by the HRM Dispatch Centre listed above.   In the past the RCMP did contract to page a few rural fire departments; however that is not thought to be the case any longer.

Note that there are of course many other in-house dispatch centres for private users and individual public safety organizations.   Note also that Parks Canada in Cape Breton Highlands and perhaps Kejimkujik are dispatched from outside the province.