2008 Southwest Mobilization Guide

[beerzkool]

Hi,

The new edition is out. Chapter 70 has the good stuff. Here is a link.

http://gacc.nifc.gov/swcc/dispatch_l...apter%2070.pdf

[letarotor]

Awesome list, thanks for the link.

I finally located the Mobilization Guide for the Rocky Mountain region but their Chapter 71 area is only one paragraph. Is the same kind of information available for the Rocky Mnt. Region? I'm trying to locate an up to date list. The info. I have is years out of date. I surfed into the NIICD web site and they had some disclaimer about freq info. not being FOI and sensitive. And here I thought CAP was going overboard but I guess everyone in the Federal government is.

Thanks

Mark

[beerzkool]

It seems different regions organize their MOB guides differently. Just keep digging, especially for minutes to Dispatcher meetings, they sometimes reveal info there.

I am fairly sure frequency secrecy is thanks to homeland security...especially aircraft.

Another issue is that all aircraft with be digital by 2010 fire season according to a memo I read at the NIFC site.

[letarotor]

"Another issue is that all aircraft will be digital by 2010 fire season according to a memo I read at the NIFC site."

Thats a very good possibility because the number of aircraft are relatively limited and those radios will be easy to replace. My favorite being the Technisonic units, by far the easiest to use and program. Talking to the ground guys will probably stay analog for years to come however, because where are they going to find the cash to replace every handheld, mobile, base and repeater unit in the federal system and radio caches? There are numerous analog repeaters still in place around the country that don't even have tone codes enabled. I find it hard to believe that with a war going on, there will be the money to make it all happen by 2010. Personally I would love for all the radios to go digital, that way I could set the "digital only" feature on my BCD996T and not hear a bunch of intermod infested open carrier frequencies during my road trips.

In regards to the freq allocations for the Rocky Mnt. region, if anyone happens to come across a recent list, please post. Thanks

Mark

[Exsmokey]

Listing frequencies in a document that is accessible to the public was supposed to stop 2-3 years ago according to Washington office policy of the Forest Service and Interior Department. For some reason the Southwestern Area is not following this direction. You will not find frequency listings in the mobilization guides for any of the other Geographical Area Coordination Centers.

The Northern Rockies had a very good one up until 2 years ago and it is no longer accessible. Up until this year the mobilization guide for the Grangeville Interagency Dispatch Center in Idaho had a great listing of frequencies, along with a map of repeater locations, and this year there is a statement that frequency information cannot be accessible to the public.

As far as I know there are no exceptions to this policy except for this one in the southwest, and a partial listing of the NIFC command, tactical, and air tactical frequencies in the California mobilization guide.

I spent several hours this spring looking through the websites of every federal natural resource dispatch center around the country. There are links to them in the "logistics/dispatch" section of each Geographical Area Coordination Center. Frequency information will not be found. Every once in a while I will find operations plans for state forestry or local wildland fire agencies that has some frequency information. One of the methods I use to find these is to do a search using just a frequency, such as "168.625" (National Air Guard) as my keyword in a Google search. By doing so I will sometimes gain access to a document that cannot be accessed using the normal file path at the site the document is in. That is happening less and less as everyone is making sure frequency information is no longer accessible to the public. I don't agree with this policy, but then I don't have access to the information about terrorists that the policy makers do.

I'm old enough to remember when Ronald Reagan classified information of every civilian federal agency back in 1981. Up to that point we were able to find out the location of the use of every civilian radio frequency. Bob Grove published a printout of the NTIA authorization list in 1980. I used that guide to figure out some things until 2004 knowing that much of it was out of date, but also knowing it was the best place to start my search. With the federal government going narrow band and using new "split" frequencies Grove's guide is now almost worthless.