A Dirty Portable Radio Will Fail You

In earlier posts I've discussed a lot of information regarding the fire service portable radio. It's important. It's the most used piece of equipment assigned to you. It goes with you on rip-roaring blazes and on the 80 percent-plus EMS runs you take in. And if it's not properly maintained, it will fail you.

To better illustrate how a dirty fire service portable radio will fail you, below you will see two pictures. Both illustrate signal strength while transmitting. Clearly the dirty radio's signal strength is compromised.

Being a Fire Engineering Training Community member, you likely fill your SCBA to FULL, ensure your imager battery is HI, and apply a tremendous amount of detail to ensuring your rig is 100 percent. Take a few minutes and clean your portable.

For some guidance on service checks and cleaning, see parts 1 and 2 of my earlier four part blogger on Using, Cleaning, and Troubleshooting fire service portable radios.