National/Federal Emergency Freqs

[brucewarming]

Thank you Thunderbolt: Lot of effort put forth there! I will study this and do some programing. My thinking is the same as safetyobc's this all sounds great! I just don't seem to think theres acceptance or equipment set to use these freq's on the local level. WV working on the interoperability system and thats a big jump forward in agency to agency comm's. Next county over has to talk thru the dispatchers to talk with the locals. Cops that carry scanners have better abilitys.

[mkewman]

found what looks to be a good listing, i dunno how accurate it is but here it is, http://www.dxing.com/scanfreq.htm

[Exsmokey]

It is difficult to determine exactly what type of information you are looking for when I read your origninal post. I would say that the type of emergency and the level of government handeling it play a large part in what frequencies you are going to hear something on. If it is a law enforcment emergency then there are some frequencies, probably the Fed/local interoperability VHF/UHF frequencies need to be scanned. They are not in widespread use at this time but expect to see more use of them as state and local agencies replace their radio systems as narrowband conversion requirements draw nearer.

You should not forget the National Interagency Incident Radio Support Cache frequencies. If you are near a large wildland fire, these will be the frequencies you need to listen to. In Washington State these would be used quite often in average and above average fire seasons. Interestingly you need to monitor these frequencies during other types of incidents as well. Presidential visits, floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, the recovery of the Columbia debris, the Three Mile Island nuclear disaster, and the last Democratic and Republican national conventions were incidents where this radio system was used. I placed the frequencies for this system in Wiki at:

http://www.radioreference.com/wiki/i..._Support_Cache

So many members here live in the east and are unfamiliiar with the resources used on wildland fires and they may overlook this system. I know that this system has often been used in the east and has even been used in some foreign countries that have requested assistance from the U.S. for emergency incidents. I think the system may have been used at the World Trade Center in 2001 as well, becuase it was a National Interagency incident management team, used primarily for wildland fire, that managed all aspects of that disaster except for operations, that is, the logistics and planning functions were carried out by this team.

I would not leave out any radio systems used by the state for wildland fires either. Some states have similar systems to that of the Feds and caches of handhelds, portable repeaters, and dispatch consoles programmed on state frequencies in the old Forestry/Conservation Service might be utilized on non fire incidents.

What I have suggested here is just a piece of a large pie but one I would never ignore when trying to find out what is going on.

[brucewarming]

Well Harrison, I bet you didn't figure you would get such a response. When I think of a national alert I start to go back to a regional/local frame of thinking. The event that ends up being a national event starts as a local event and starts up the chain of commuications to the national level. Using the train derailment as an example. How this information gets to the point it is broadcasted back to the local public starts with that train conductor. The path to the public may go something like this (all assumed by me) Conductor of train in Martinsburg WV to CSX main dispatcher Jacksonville FL. Hazmat alert! Jacksonville calls (EOC) Emergency Operations Center Charleston WV in turn they will contact NTSB National Transportation Safty Board and emergency chemical response team or nuke team what ever the correct team would be. Jacksonville dispatcher would leave the decision up to that team to notifiy local fire/police as to what to do. Where in this event is the public alerted? Time has past, you can be assured of that.

[z96cobra]

Originally Posted by loumaag

No scanner can respond to SAME alerts while scanning, they must be parked on the WX channel for SAME to work.

I haven't been able to verify this yet (still waiting on some bad weather!), but on my BR330T it will work according to the manual. I can turn on the WX alert and every 5 seconds (while scanning) it will check the WX freqs. to look for alerts. I have it on right now, and I get the "WX" in the bottome of the display (while scanning) and every 5 seconds or so it chacks the WX channel. None of my other scanners will do this though.

Roger

[safetyobc]

That isn't the SAME alert. That is the weather alert priority that checks the 1050 mHz tone. SAME is different in that it localizes the alert.

[kb2vxa]

Hi Safe and all,

The frequencies are only used in case of a declared emergency where wide area interoperability is required. The info supplied by Thunderbolt appears to be old and incomplete, NJ has several networks under construction which include many more 400MHz, 500MHz and an 800MHz system shared by NYC. The licenses are held by the Attorney General's Office while the systems are operated by the counties. I found the complete data on the FCC ULS site beginning my search by one specific frequency and state which turned up the licencee, then by licencee which turned up all the frequencies and transmitter sites.

[Harrison]

Lots of good responses and info.

Brucewarming, I think you are onto something with your scenario. It would definately be heard by local law first. Then, as it wentup the chain and the idea that this could be a issue of National Security (terrorist attack, nuke alert... etc) then it would need to be broadcasted to a larger audience. So maybe the State Police would be a place to check out.

I would like to think there is a national frequency(s) that is used solely for the purpose of National Emergency.

Those "tests" that occur on TV ("This is only a test") make use of a alert system, and you would think that would carry over to the airwaves.

From some of the posts and some google searches it seems like the WX channels are suited for this.

And Thunderbolt, thanks for that list, it might be what I need, but Im not smart enough to know it! Hah!

[slammed]

My head is spinning from trying to understand .... Could somebody point to a list of SKYWARN freqs? I am in CT

[icom1020]

You're right about the radios not always picking up the alert, but if if does, it's usually quicker than what the media relays it to the public. My FT-60 has a wx alert but not SAME feature, so the alert goes off, but the squelch has only opened once, during a rare tornado warning in Portland last summer (the sky was green, too) The 90% coverage could also be due to some radios that dont have the same sensitivity as scanners or others transcievers. Case in point, I was taking an outdoor class in which the instructor was explaining how his pocket wx radio (Oregon Products model) was such a great little tool in the outdoors, but watching him get a local NWS station with less than sastisfactory results, I pulled out my 2m HH and got at least 2 stations with better reception, he then looked at me and said, "This guy should be going out with us" Those recievers may have gotten better since and more NWS transmitters have gone on the air or have changed locations.

I have the VTAC freqs installed in my commercial Icom but V-CALL made a good 'cable leakage" detector, so I locked it out

Washington State VHF plan:

4. TECHNICAL DATA
Channel Transmit Tone Receive Tone
OSCCR 156.135 203.5 Hz 156.135 None
LERN 155.370 100 Hz 155.370 None
NLEC 155.475 None 155.475 None
REDNET 153.830 None 153.830 None
DNR COMMON 151.415 None 151.415 None
HEAR 155.340 None 155.340 None
SAR 155.160 None 155.160 None
VCALL*^ 155.7525 203.5 Hz 155.7525 None
VTAC 1* 151.1375 203.5 Hz 151.1375 None
VTAC 2*^ 154.4525 203.5 Hz 154.4525 None
VTAC 3*^ 158.7375 203.5 Hz 158.7375 None
VTAC 4*^ 159.4725 203.5 Hz 159.4725 None
RPTR 1* 151.370 None 159.375 None
RPRT 2* 151.385 None 159.330 None
RPTR 3* 151.265 None 159.240 None
RPTR 4* 151.250 None 159.330 None
RPTR 5* 170.575 None 172.375 None
*Narrowband analog channel 12.5 KHz
^In most cases, these frequencies are restricted near the Canadian border. (See Appendix 4A)

[eyes00only]

Originally Posted by Harrison

Howdy Jerry, what do you mean they dont work when you are scanning?

Sorry to take so long to get back, but had to work etc. See post #17 in which Lou answers the question.

Jerry

[Thunderbolt]

Originally Posted by safetyobc

Thunderbolt,

Do agencies really use these freqs? If so who? Govt? Nat. Guard? FEMA?

matt

Very sadly, many agencies do not have there frequencies programmed into their radios for instant use. The first group is for law enforcement agencies only, while the second is for non-law enforcement agencies. Moreover, that list of frequencies is for intercommunicating between local, county, state, and federal users during a declared emergency. Nevertheless, from what I have heard, these frequencies are being used down in New Orleans area as part of the relief efforts in the aftermath of Katrina.

I understand that there is a move to allow use of these frequencies for regular purposes to better promote interoperability among all agencies. That said, it really falls at the state level to plan and implement intersystems, and very sadly many agencies aren't even aware of these frequencies. Hopefully, that will change.

73's

Ron