DCNR Forest fire Season

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Steveradio

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Well its that time of the year again and double checking my District 18 DCNR Forest Fire Frequencies which remember last year it depended on your location and what you are picking up.
Working mostly Monroe & Carbon Counties and just curious if any chatter was heard yet, used to pick up Swiftwater doing checked at 8am 4pm etc but nothing so far, also know they all have 800mhz access.

Thanks
Steve
 

mark40

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Steve- This time last year at my location in Pike Co. Promised Land was quite busy on VHF 151.36250 179.9 PL (Pike Co. High Knob Repeater). I'll keep an ear out, and your post reminded me that I need to program it in my new scanner. THX
 

countywacker

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From what I heard they were going to let the FCC Licenses on the VHF frequencies expire and then they were going to abandoned them......But, when I was working with a DCNR Ranger last week on a brush fire. He pulled out the Ole Bendix King radio with the 3 foot high VHF antenna on it. So who knows.
 

Steveradio

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Same was hearing all different stories by the end of last year one reason why wanted to program them back in my bank think will try to monitor CSQ just in case PLs change
 

druhe

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District 4 & 6

So far everything that I am in range of in District 6 & 4 has been quiet. However I have monitored two Air Tankers doing comm checks on COMPACT 159.2850, they were also testing several repeaters which they were not accessing, the one pilot did return to base to check programming.
 

Steveradio

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Give it time they will pick up soon enough, sucks since used to enjoy monitoring Beltzville and Hickory Run Parks, They still use VHF to contact Carbon County Comm Center but everything else switched even summer time at Beltzville all 800 radios for parking too.
 

mike4164

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From what I heard they were going to let the FCC Licenses on the VHF frequencies expire and then they were going to abandoned them......But, when I was working with a DCNR Ranger last week on a brush fire. He pulled out the Ole Bendix King radio with the 3 foot high VHF antenna on it. So who knows.

I just had my wilderness fire refresher 2 weeks ago here in Pike County and the DCNR said there are no changes for the radios as speculated in the rumors. They heard the rumors as well and confirmed for us in class that the VHF will be used and expect them to get busy pretty soon.

Mike
Retired FDNY/EMS
Haz-Tac
 

buckbull

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Steve- This time last year at my location in Pike Co. Promised Land was quite busy on VHF 151.36250 179.9 PL (Pike Co. High Knob Repeater). I'll keep an ear out, and your post reminded me that I need to program it in my new scanner. THX

Im in Pike county Dingmans area was wondering what other frequencies besides 151.36250 179.9 PL are used for our area by the DCNR? Thanks
 

mark40

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BTW to the OP Steveradio- hearing a lot of activity on Fire District 19 with Swiftwater issuing daily fire weather on 151.36250 Hi-Knob to Whiskey units in the field

Buckbull: Don't listen to NJ on a regular basis...but when I do it's Sussex Fire and NJ Forest Fire Service.

My listening interests are Pike County Fire/EMS/Law Enforcement, Industrial Electronics LTR system, Delaware Tsp. municipal services, Wild Acres Public Safety, along with National Park Service, DCNR, Game Commission and North East Monroe Fire.

I work in Monroe County and use a handheld to monitor MC Fire and EMS when I'm there
 

buckbull

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Is wild acres busy i heard its not the nicest place to live . Dont know how true that is . You know how people BS
 

mark40

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It's a fairly large community and it's really a mixed bag, both good and bad. However, I wouldn't be inclined encourage anyone to move in unless they got the deal of a lifetime in a good area of the community.
 

mark40

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Today heard 159.285 Air to Ground being used with PL 179.9 for the first time.

Edit: It was not DCNR- After further review it was NJ Forest Fire Service I was hearing

159.28500 KA4765 M 179.9 PL DEP 10 Air Fire Air Operations
 
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HM1529

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Today heard 159.285 Air to Ground being used with PL 179.9 for the first time.

Edit: It was not DCNR- After further review it was NJ Forest Fire Service I was hearing

159.28500 KA4765 M 179.9 PL DEP 10 Air Fire Air Operations

Correct. I have also noticed that PA and NJ operations will sometime conflict with each other. I heard NJ guys on Monday discussing hearing some "distant stations" working on the channel.

You would think after so many years of shared use that they would all understand who is utilizing the frequency.
 

mark40

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And I'm only a few miles from the NJ border/Delaware River, where I can potentially hear both relatively well. NJ uses a PL but PA is listed as CSQ. With PL in use on many of the DCNR freqs, why do you suppose they stay with CSQ on 159.285?
 

skip39

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if it stays dry for a long period. It could get ugly with big brush fires happening more often. i like monitoring the pa dcnr frequencies during the dry periods we have.
 

Steveradio

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Hopefully the rain today helps, how ever if PA/NJ DCNR units both use the same Air- Air frequencies you would think co-ordination would have caught that but than again being up in the air at 1,000ft radios pick up alot more than ground units would
 
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