The MABAS divisions basically follow county lines. The only exception is the City of Milwaukee which has established its own MABAS division due to size and number of agencies potentially involved.
Currently, twenty counties have formally established MABAS divisions and an additional 14 counties are in the process of adopting the program. WHAT IS MABAS ?
MABAS is a mutual aid organization that has been in existence since the late 1960s. Heavily rooted throughout northern Illinois , MABAS now includes over 750 member fire departments organized within 75 divisions. MABAS first came to Wisconsin in 1987 with the joining of the Village of Pleasant Prairie in Kenosha County . MABAS divisions geographically span the states of Illinois , Wisconsin , Indiana , Missouri , Michigan , and the other states, i.e. Minnesota , Iowa , and Ohio , are considering joining. There are 16 established Wisconsin divisions (as of May 2008) who share MABAS with the 62 divisions established in Illinois .
MABAS includes over 25,000+ firefighters and daily staffed emergency response units including more than 950 fire stations, 1100+ engine companies, 375+ ladder trucks, 800+ ambulances (mostly paramedic capable),
150+ heavy rescue squads, 135+ light rescue squads, and 275+ water tankers. Fire/ EMS reserve (back-up) units account for more than 600 additional emergency vehicles. MABAS also offers specialized operations teams for hazardous materials (HAZMAT), underwater rescue/recovery (DIVE) and above grade/below grade, trench and building collapse rescues, a.k.a. Technical Rescue Teams ( TRT ). An additional element of resource are the certified fire investigators which can be "packaged" as teams for larger incidents requiring complicated and time-consuming efforts for any single agency.
WHAT IS WISCOM ?
System Overview - State of Wisconsin VHF P25 system - WISCOM
WISCOM Latest Active Site Deployment Map as of June 30
The Wisconsin Interoperable System for Communications (WISCOM) is a 9600 baud Project 25 (P25) Phase 1 digital VHF Trunked Radio System (TRS) that will provide interoperable communications to public safety in the State of Wisconsin.
The initial build-out began in the summer of 2010, with completion by the end of 2011 as stipulated by the federal Public Safety Interoperable Communications (PSIC) grant being used to build the system.
Hardware
The RF site equipment will be supplied by EF Johnson Technologies Inc. (EFJ) of Irving, TX. Each site will have five (5) frequencies using EFJ 3800 series digital repeaters. This equipment is part of EFJ's IP25 technology and each repeater contains it's own trunking controller.
The EFJ system will be a distributed network with de-centralized call routing, meaning there is no "central controller" overseeing PTT requests and TG access. Each site handles these needs on its own. There will be some "central" servers with a user database and the like, but it's up to each site to grant system access.
Subscriber units
Since the WISCOM radio system is a 9600 baud P25 digital TRS, subscriber equipment can come from any vendor that sells compatible equipment. As long as a vendor's VHF radio supports P25 9600 baud trunking, it can in theory be used on the WISCOM system.
Currently, there are 50 WISCOM sites on line for radio testing. The system is being tested with both mobile and portable radios. So far the portables show good coverage with one test being conducted from near St Paul, Minnesota with good results. Several communities and counties are currently looking at switching their daily radio operations over to WISCOM and are part of the "Early Deployment" of the system.