St John Ambulance Service

The St John Ambulance Service is made up of volunteers who supply their time to provide first aid coverage at many community events, these are backed up by a small number of paid staff.

Some of the events where you may find St John volunteers are; the Royal show, the Christmas pageant, AFL and SANFL football matches, the Cricket, Horse riding events, and Motocross, as well as many other functions where there is the possibility of an accident or injury occurring. They are also trained for assisting in major disasters, and are regularly called upon to assist at bushfires.

Many of these events are attended by junior members called cadets, these members will be in a team with a senior member with them to assist with treatment and supervision.

Foot patrols and mobile first aid units as well as portable base stations all form part of the St John network, in some cases patients will even be transported to a nearby hospital by St John volunteers in an Ambulance. Often St John voulunteers are Doctors, Nurses and Paramedics who freely give up there own time to put something back into the community.

First aid foot patrols normally utilise U.H.F. portable radios for event communications, these are equipped with selcall which makes it easier to call individual radios. The service also has a number of caravans which can be set up as field operations units, these have base radios and telescopic masts for greater range.

Simplex channels are normally used by field crews, however a number of UHF Repeaters are also available at major entertainment locations across the Adelaide CBD for local use.

St John crews use the SA-GRN for notifying their State HQ of events they are attending, as well as command and coordination communications. If a UHF Simplex channel or repeater is not satisfactory to provide coverage at an event, a GRN talkgroup may be allocated for local communications.

 St John Talkgroups

St John S.A. H.F. Frequencies:

St John S.A. existing UHF Frequencies:

411.400 - Simplex

411.750 CT 123.0 - Simplex 1

412.100 CT 123.0 - Simplex 2 (SAAS Talkgroup 56)

419.125 CT 103.5 - City Repeater (Westpac Building)

419.875 - City Repeater (25 Grenfell St - Not used)

462.850 - CT 107.2 - City Repeater (25 Grenfell St - Used Regularly)

463.575 - CT 107.2 - Adelaide Oval Repeater

465.9875 - CT 107.2 - Mount Osmond Repeater

470.150 - Crafers

470.400 - City Repeater (Westpac Building - May not be in use yet - Sept 2011)

470.975 - CT 114.8 - Royal Adelaide Show

472.150 - Simplex

472.200 - Simplex

472.925 - Sellicks Hill Repeater

507.950 tx / 517.950 rx

509.475 tx / 519.475 rx

Callsigns:

“5SJ” or State 900 = State Operations Centre/Command for the SA-GRN.

The St John Ambulance SA (SJSA) State Operations Centre (SOC) is located at:

State Operations Centre
7-9 Acorn Road, Camden Park SA 5038

The SOC is used for major events (Clipsal 500, Adelaide Oval events, Schoolies Festival etc.), having call-taker and dispatcher consoles with a computer aided dispatch (CAD) system. This is separate from SACAD, with operators contacting SA Ambulance Service via phone as required.

5SJ can be broken down into a nationwide callsign alignment; 5 being 5000 (Adelaide, SA postcode) and SJ being St John. NSW is 2SJ, etc.

200 = Division Superintendent

210 = Cadet Division Superintendent

400 = Clinical Supervisor (Doctor)

500 = Foot Patrol

700 = Clinical Supervisor (Paramedic)

600 = Clinical Supervisor (Registered Nurse)

601 = Post 1 Clinician (Registered Nurse)

610 = Post 1 Foot patrol with Registered Nurse

611 = Post 1 Foot patrol with Registered Nurse

800 = Communications Supervisor

951 = Response Crew 1

This is where the callsign starts from, so here's a few examples:

950, 951, 952, 953 = First Response (2/3 persons, Advanced Responder or First Responder with A+B packs. Range from 950-959)

710, 711, 712, 713 = Foot Patrol (2/3 persons) with a Paramedic

610, 611, 612, 613 = Foot Patrol (2/3 persons) with a Registered Nurse

501, 502, 503, 504 = Treatment Centre Team Leaders

510, 511, 512, 513 = Foot Patrols

SA-GRN talkgroups are assigned according to the Major Events Management Plan, usually GMA-1, GMA-2 and the region specific SA-GRN channel (eg. 15-STH COAST) are used for the event.

SJSA acquired ex-SAPOL Motorola XTS3000 SA-GRN radios for use by response crews, foot patrols and team leaders at major events. These are programmed for SA-GRN, SJSA repeater channels (Mt Lofty, Adelaide Oval etc.) and local simplex event channels (21-EVENT, 22-EVENT, 23-EVENT, 26-EVENT).

Updated (30-12-14)

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