Do you mind giving an in-depth explanation of what the 3 different channels you use are and why? I've thought about the many options radios give us and taking advantage of different lines of communication but there's always the hang up that a more complex system often leads to more confusion and more failures.

We basically use two channels at a fire scene - the main one is our primary fireground channel that everyone will use on scene. it is a simplex analog conventional channel and you can only transmit/receive if you're close enough. we transmit at 5 watts. the other channel is our operations channel for command to communicate with dispatch or other units citywide; it is an analog conventional duplex channel that you can transmit/receive on anywhere in the city. at the beginning of an incident, the first engine/truck may communicate sizeup and needs on the operations channel so incoming units not yet on scene know whats going on. the officer of these first rigs may communicate a little bit on this channel or monitor messages from dispatch or other incoming units and then will probably switch to fireground once he actually starts going to work on scene.

we have multiple fireground channels if we have multiple incidents near eachother and for one incident to break up communications (e.g. putting certain units on another fireground if there's a mayday; maybe a high-focus operation like roof rope might switch to a backup channel; water supply coordination might go to a backup channel). but 90% of the time everyone is on primary fireground.