Information for scanner enthusiasts

• Monitoring our primary communications on 155.175 MHz
• Understanding our unit designations and codes
• Monitoring our secondary communications with a conventional scanner
• Information for use with trunk-tracking scanners
• Monitoring our "medical control" communications
• Legacy systems
• Other communication resources we use

Monitoring our primary communications

Listen to our primary communications LIVE over the Internet!

In the Hampton Roads region, you can hear a simulcast of our primary communications on 155.175 MHz. (Actual primary communications are conducted on Virginia Beach's municipal trunked radio system -- see Monitoring our secondary communications). The simulcast is provided by the City of Virginia Beach in recognition of the fact that its all-volunteer rescue squad system is highly dependent on conventional paging and scanning receivers. We sometimes call our primary channel the "EMS Command Channel". Simulcast antennas are located atop one tower behind the Plaza Fire & Rescue Station on S.Plaza Trail near Rosemont Road, and atop a second tower on Pleasant Ridge Road.

Understanding our unit designations and codes

In our radio conversations, we use City of Virginia Beach unit designations and codes. The most basic set of designations is the set of fire and rescue station numbers:

1. Ocean Park
2. Davis Corner
3. London Bridge
4. Chesapeake Beach
5. Princess Anne Courthouse
6. Creeds
7. Thalia
8. Oceana
9. KEMPSVILLE
10. Woodstock
11. Virginia Beach (fire)
12. Seatack
13. Blackwater
14. Virginia Beach (rescue)
15. Knotts Island, North Carolina
16. Plaza
17. Sandbridge
18. Green Run
19. Stumpy Lake
20. Little Neck
21. Strawbridge

Although the trend is to use plain English designations and phrases, some unit numbers persist. When the above station numbers are used as prefixes, they can be combined with the following suffixes to form unit numbers:

• 20-27: Ambulances
• 28-29: Utility vehicles
• 30-31: Crash Truck Team Supervisor and Assistant Supervisor
• 32-49: Crash Truck Team personnel
• 50-51: Squad Commander and Assistant Squad Commander
• 52-59: Other line officers
• 60-69: Other key personnel
• 70-99: ALS personnel (C=Cardiac Tech, P=Paramedic)

Example KVRS unit numbers (see Our Apparatus! for others):

• 921: One of our ambulances
• 950: Our Squad Commander
• 970P: One of our paramedics

Some codes and signals persist, too:

• Code/Priority 1: Emergency
• Code/Priority 2: Urgent
• Code/Priority 3: Routine
• Code Red: Cardiac Arrest
• Code Gray: Dead
• File 41:  Accident fatality
• Signal 1: Call via telephone
• Signal 1-I: Call via telephone immediately
• Signal 3: Report to
• Signal 15: Relocate apparatus

Although the following 10-codes are officially obsolete, you can still hear them used from time to time:

• 10-1: Transmission unreadable
• 10-2: Transmission loud & clear
• 10-4: Received, affirmative, or OK
• 10-7: Out of service
• 10-8: In service
• 10-10: In quarters or posted at
• 10-13: Attendant needed
• 10-18: Reduce your response
• 10-19: Cancel your response
• 10-20: Location
• 10-23: Driver needed
• 10-97: On scene
• 10-98: Clear and available

Monitoring our secondary communications

We use Virginia Beach's municipal trunked radio system for much of our other radio communications. This computer-driven system is a set of 20 frequency pairs that is shared by all of the city's various departments. Although conversations may actually switch from frequency to frequency depending on system load, such frequency shifting is not apparent to us as users. Monitoring these communications can be tricky for those with non-trunk-tracking scanners, but it is not impossible.

At any given time, one of the above frequencies is used as the "control" channel. On a scanner, the control channel is easily recognized as a continuous "jack hammer" sound. To monitor voice transmissions, you must lock-out or deselect this frequency. The control channel changes frequencies about once a day. Don't forget to unlock/reselect the previous control channel frequency. The system's broadcast antennas are located on the same towers as the simulcast antennas.

We sometimes use the Fire & EMS Talk-Around channel for line-of-sight communications. It's frequency is 852.4125.

Information for use with trunk-tracking scanners

The City of Virginia Beach operates a Motorola hybrid (Type I/II) analog trunked radio system.  To program your trunk tracker to monitor our communications, you'll need the list of output frequencies (shown above) and the list of talk group IDs shown below.

The old Type I information is published here until the Type II conversion has stabilized:

More information is available on Jeremiah Toth's City of Virginia Beach page and at TrunkTracker.com.

Monitoring our "medical control" communications

Medical Control refers to the doctor(s) under whose delegated authority we treat our patients. We use various methods to consult with hospital emergency department staff, including the land-line telephone network, the cellular telephone network, Virginia Beach's municipal trunked radio system, and the national UHF MED/COR system. (COR stands for Coronary Observation Radio.)

More information about MED/COR and HEAR communications is available in the Hampton Roads Mass Casualty Incident Response Guide, published jointly by TEMS and PEMS.

Legacy systems

Before Virginia Beach had a municipal trunked radio system, KVRS depended on conventional VHF radios. For back-up purposes, we still equip each of our units with VHF transceivers.

Other communication resources we use

If you monitor our voice traffic, you'll frequently hear us referring to MDTs (Mobile Data Terminals) or KDTs (Kaypro Data Terminal -- an anachronism). Like most big cities, Virginia Beach makes significant use of mobile data terminals as a way of reducing voice traffic and increasing reliability.

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