Positions and radio IDs

Dispatch positions

A position is a named desk that owns a set of channels: "PD North", "Fire/EMS". A dispatcher signs on at one and their board loads it.

Owners and admins create them under Positions.

What signing on does

Two things, and only one is cosmetic:

1. Your board narrows to the position's channels.
2. So do your permissions. You cannot hear or key what your position does not carry.

That second part is enforced on the server, not hidden in the interface. A position that only hid cards would leave you subscribed to the audio of everything it was hiding.

A position narrows. It never widens.

Listing a channel on a position does not grant it; channel permissions still decide that. Adding a channel to a position can never give somebody access they did not already have.

Naming the channels, or naming the groups

A desk carries either a hand-picked list of channels or whole channel groups, the same choice a radio plan makes, and the same control. Carrying groups means a channel filed into Fire later lands on every desk that carries Fire, with nothing to change here.

Pick channels one by one when a desk's set genuinely does not line up with any group. Existing desks keep the list they already have; nothing was converted for you, because a desk's channel list is what a dispatcher's board carries and it should not change without somebody deciding it should.

Unclaimed channels stay on every board

A channel no position owns is carried by everybody. Without that rule, creating your first position would strip every channel from every console except the ones somebody remembered to list.

So the honest way to read a position is "which channels are this desk's responsibility", not "which channels exist".

One operator per desk

A second person taking an occupied position is refused, and told who holds it. A position is a physical desk; two consoles keying with the same console ID would have no way to be told apart.

Your own second window is fine; reconnecting or opening another tab does not lock you out of your own desk.

Borrowing a channel

County dispatch gets asked to cover something for the state, and needs the state channel for twenty minutes, not a permanent change to what the desk carries.

If your owner has enabled it (On-air rules → Dispatchers may add channels their position does not carry), open quick find, type the channel, and pick the one tagged + ADD. It lands on your board in an Added: not on this position folder, marked ADDED, with a Remove from my board button.

Borrowed channels disappear when you sign off the position. They are for an incident, not a configuration change.

You can only ever borrow a channel your own permissions already allow. Borrowing widens the position, not the person.

Radio IDs

Every member gets a numeric radio ID: the PTT ID a console prints when they key up.

Real radios ident themselves before the first word: MDC-1200 sends a four-digit unit ID as a data burst on key-up, and P25 puts a source ID in every voice frame. A dispatcher reads an ID at least as often as they recognize a voice.

Individual radio IDs are edited on the People screen, on each member's own line in the roster, not on this screen. They were here until August 2026, which put a setting about a person on a page about desks.

• IDs are allocated automatically the first time somebody gets on the air. A community that configures nothing still gets sensible, stable IDs, and nobody has to fill this in for the radio to work.
• The number comes from their department's block. Real systems put the sheriff in the 1000s, fire in the 2000s and EMS in the 3000s, so a dispatcher reads the outfit off the ident before anybody speaks. Each department's block is set on Departments; see Radio ID blocks. A department with no block draws from the community-wide run starting at 1001.
• Nothing renumbers anybody. A block decides the next number handed out; changing one, or moving somebody between departments, leaves existing IDs alone. A number that moved would rewrite who the comms log says was talking.
• An alias overrides what the console prints beside the ID. Left blank, it falls back to the CAD unit callsign (in a linked community) and then to the account name.
• Admins hold the same capability (manage_identities) and can edit both from the console's On the net roster; click a callsign there and retype it. Dispatchers cannot: a dispatcher works a position, an admin runs the community.

Who may change their own number, and the range they may pick from, is under People → Radio ID rules.

What the board shows on key-up

• A field unit idents as callsign and ID: 3A-12 · 1401.
• A console idents as its position, not the person sitting at it: PD North · DISP1. That is how a real center idents, and it is why a position has a console ID of its own.

An admin watching the roster sees both: the position on the air, and who is sitting at it underneath.