The CFS can't win with some of you guys, I can imagine all the crap if they issued $65 VHF radios (like the chinese ones you get on ebay). The better quality of these radios generally work ok to start with but very quickly go out of spec (if they were ever in spec).
The dollars quoted for the Icoms from tetracom is not just for a radio but a package of spare battery, case, programming, 5 yr warranty and overheads for tetracom to deal with all that is involved when invoicing the state govt. Just the bare radio itself is around $450 odd I think - but my opinion is for the quality of the radio that is too much but really who cares, you either need a piece of equipment or not, regardless of cost. I completely agree that every appliance should be equipped with one VHF portable per person but of course there is no central funding for that but groups run their own budget and are free to buy as many extras as they want depending how important they decide this to be.
The official allocation of GRN portables was supposed to be 1 per appliance except specificed EMA and special purpose appliances get 2. This was not always followed properly in some regions (but is pretty much the rule in region 1 at least).
We can work with MFS on the fireground at present, you just have to treat the MFS appliance as their own sector reporting on GRN (trunked or simplex) to the IC or DivCom (works better when you have a couple of MFS appliances and a district officer in a car, he can act as a strike team leader or sector commander).
I can understand people calling for an additional portable for appliances to be able to talk to the bombers but in the bigger picture that is not a good idea. Other regions would have been better following region 6 lead and insisting the bombers use the incident talkgroup otherwise accept the fact that the bombers will not be able to talk to anyone until a command car arrives on scene (or the group duty officer relays between the incident TG and bombers).
Finally HF radios have not gone out, they are still around but the preference is satphones, every appliance in remote areas should have one, if not then talk to your group officer and put in a hazard form and make a fuss until you do.
