Alberta (CA)

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Alberta

Areawide Trunking System in Alberta

Geography

The province of Alberta is in western Canada, stretching from the United States border at the 49th parallel to the Northwest Territories at the 60th, and from British Columbia to the west - with the Continental Divide in the Rocky Mountains forming part of the border, along with the 120th line of longitude - to Saskatchewan in the east, on the 110th line of longitude. The province is comprised of varying terrain from flat prairie to tall mountainous regions, forested regions, and canyons and coulees, making for difficult comms challenges.

Relative Geographic Location

Radio Networks

Currently, the province has several aged conventional repeater networks, supporting the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), who provide municipal policing for the province; various Government of Alberta services including Sustainable Resource Development officers (Conservation Officers, Fish & Wildlife Officers, etc.); Alberta Sheriffs (providing traffic enforcement, court and remand officials, and other non-municipal law enforcement duties); and so on. Many of these networks are beyond the end of their useful life, and are being maintained only as long as is necessary to bridge the gap until the province-wide 700MHz, APCO Project-25 trunked radio network (AFRRCS - Alberta First Responders' Radio Communication System) is built, scheduled to be started in 2009 with full system completion in 2012 (Now 2016).

Future edits to this page will include Alberta Unknown Trunking Systems, a list of systems known in the TAFL but whose type and system flavor are not known; Useful Common Alberta Information, such as how to program scanner ABC for system XYZ; and Upcoming Province of Alberta Projects, which will describe what is known about the Alberta First Responders' Radio Communication System (AFRRCS) (mentioned above) and the upcoming (as of January 2009) Alberta Health Services merger/transition of ambulance services to the province.

Alberta Emergency Services Reference

This is a supplemental scanning reference for emergency services in Alberta.

Radio Codes

Most public safety organizations in Alberta use some combination of ten codes and supplementary status codes. APCO has defined a standard meaning for ten codes to provide interoperability between different departments and agencies. Most agencies in Alberta do not subscribe to the standard or have made significant changes.

RCMP

Alberta Health Services

Alberta Health Services is the arm of the Alberta provincial government responsible for health care. In terms of public safety, AHS is the operator of ambulance services for the province.

Background

Until 2009 Ambulance service in Alberta was provided by municipalities as either a combination Fire/EMS agency or a 'third service' model. Several First Nations also provide their own ambulance services, which fall under federal guidelines and the Department of Indian Affairs.

Several times in the 2000s, the Government of Alberta made attempts at amalgamating existing ambulance services across the province into one entity, to be managed and governed by the province. In 2008, the declaration was made that this merger would take place on 2009 April 01.

Emergency Medical Services in Alberta is now provided via either direct delivery (AHS EMS) or in some communities via contract services (Associated Ambulance, etc)

AHS also provides fixed wing Air Ambulance service for several communities in Alberta, including Edmonton, Grande Prairie, Peace River, and Slave Lake.

Several other communities in Alberta recieve fixed wing Air Ambulance service via contracted 3rd party providers.

Rotary wing Air Ambulance services in Alberta are provided by the Shock Trauma Air Rescue Society (STARS), with bases in Calgary, Edmonton, and Grande Prairie.

Alberta Health Zones

The province is divided up into 7 different zones, each zone provides health services to their respective geographical area. AHS EMS is unique, wherein Ambulances often provide backup/cross coverage for Ambulance in other zones. This is achieved via the AHS EMS borderless dispatch model.

The AHS zones are as follows:

North Zone

Edmonton Suburban Rural Zone

Edmonton Metro Zone

Central Zone

Calgary Suburban Rural Zone

Calgary Metro Zone

South Zone

Dispatch Services

Shortly after the merger, AHS began to consolidate dispatch services into what they call a "borderless system". Using this, all ambulances in Alberta are dispatched using the same system, meaning any dispatcher in any Communication Center in the province can see the location and status of every ambulance in the province.

There are currently six (6) EMS Communication Centers operating in Alberta. 3 are operated by AHS, and 3 are contracted to provide EMS dispatch services in addition to the other services they already dispatch (Fire/Police)

The EMS Communication Centers in Alberta are:

Northern Communications Center (NCC) - Peace River AB

Central Communications Center (CCC) - Edmonton AB

Red Deer Emergency Communications Center - Red Deer AB

Southern Communications Center (SCC) - Calgary AB

Lethbridge Emergency Communications Center - Lethbridge AB

Fort McMurray Emergency Communications Center - Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo AB

Communications

Previously, EMS services across the province used a myriad of all sorts of communications networks for dispatch and operations, including conventional UHF/VHF, various trunking systems, MotoTRBO, iDEN, VHF paired with satellite relay, and the Internet Radio Linking Protocol (IRLP), to name a few.

All EMS services (direct delivery/contract) not utilize the Alberta First Responders' Radio Communication System (AFRRCS) for all communication. AHS EMS communications on AFRRCS are 100% encrypted, and are not scannable.

Dispatch Codes

All Alberta Health Services dispatch centres use the proprietary Medical Priority Dispatch System to determine the level of response.

Other Alberta Trunking Systems

Alberta First Responders' Radio Communication System

See Alberta First Responders' Radio Communication System (AFRRCS).

See ATCO Electric.

Railways

Online Scanners

Edmonton Fire Radio

Web/Wiki Pages

Wiki Articles

Alberta-Related Categories

Category:Alberta - hierarchically structured categories for Alberta
List existing categories starting at Alberta -- jump to Alberta in alphabetically sorted list of existing categories
Standardized Categories for Alberta -- lists all alphabetically not hierarchically.