Unk California Fire Fed Freqs 2015

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kma371

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Since there are plenty of good fires going, I'd like to start this forum to discuss any unknown freqs that are in use.

I'm currently hearing MAFFS 9 and BRAVO 7 on 168.500 CSQ. Both units are air units and appear to be simplex. Haven't found this frequency in any listing.

Also heard some air units on 168.73750, but I don't have any other notes.
 

ecps92

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168.7375 was listed as CDF FED 2 recently

168.5000 is/was used in CO/UT for Air/Ground back in 2011

Hope these help. Any locations ??

Since there are plenty of good fires going, I'd like to start this forum to discuss any unknown freqs that are in use.

I'm currently hearing MAFFS 9 and BRAVO 7 on 168.500 CSQ. Both units are air units and appear to be simplex. Haven't found this frequency in any listing.

Also heard some air units on 168.73750, but I don't have any other notes.
 

kma371

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Nothing heard location wise, but signals were very strong. based on my location, it could have been units in the "Rough" fire in Kings NP or the "Jerusalem" fire in Napa County.
 

kma371

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Monitoring 168.7375 now,

Heard aircraft who ID'd the freq as "Dinky heli-spot, air tac, air to ground" or something similar to Dinky, requesting assistance from Helicopter 527 (which appears based out of Los Padres NF) for some type of rescue on a missing person.

Also mentioned the following locations:
Road 337
Aubry Hill
 
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inigo88

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I camped in Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Park over the weekend and monitored the Rough fire.

Command was on 170.0125 (Rx) / 168.400 (Tx) PL 127.3 on what sounded like a lower power portable repeater.

I also heard 168.7375 being used as an Air to Ground from Air Attack.

163.100 was in use as well, and I caught some brief transmissions from a helicopter there. Sierra National Forest and Sequoia National Forest dispatch channels were busy as well. Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Park dispatch was actually pretty quiet, because the Rough fire is on USFS land.
 

SCPD

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I camped in Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Park over the weekend and monitored the Rough fire.

Command was on 170.0125 (Rx) / 168.400 (Tx) PL 127.3 on what sounded like a lower power portable repeater.

I also heard 168.7375 being used as an Air to Ground from Air Attack.

163.100 was in use as well, and I caught some brief transmissions from a helicopter there. Sierra National Forest and Sequoia National Forest dispatch channels were busy as well. Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Park dispatch was actually pretty quiet, because the Rough fire is on USFS land.

Every source I have shows 168.4000 as the input to Command 4 whose output frequency is 166.6125. Command 9 has an output of 170.0125 with an input of 165.2500. Command 9 is one of the repeater channels in the nationwide interoperability VHF federal response system. Lots of interesting things can be done in regard to frequency use on large incidents. This would involve using the input channel from one of the NIFC command repeater pairs and matching it up to one of the fed interoperability repeater output frequencies. I wonder if there are actually 2 command repeaters being used, Commands 4 and 9 network. In this configuration two portable repeaters are set up to collectively provide coverage to the entire fire. Those two repeaters are then linked with UHF frequencies and any transmission on either command channel input frequency will be transmitted on the output of both repeaters. Is it possible that you were hearing the output of the Command 9 repeater and the input of the Command 4 repeater?

163.1000 is used for air and ground traffic control at incident heliports.

168.7375 is used by the BLM on the Colorado River District in Arizona. This is possibly one of those unused federal frequencies in the area of this incident that are assigned temporarily to it. There are 73 frequencies on the nationwide air to ground list and I'm surprised that one of those was not assigned to this incident.

As for the name of this fire I'm pretty sure I know why it was named this. The first unit responding probably spotted the fire and its location after being dispatched to it and thought "boy is this fire going to be rough." The walls of the Kings River Canyon are very steep, have steep rock outcrops and lots of tall brush. I think it is one of the most rugged pieces of real estate in the state.
 

SCPD

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Monitoring 168.7375 now,

Heard aircraft who ID'd the freq as "Dinky heli-spot, air tac, air to ground" or something similar to Dinky, requesting assistance from Helicopter 527 (which appears based out of Los Padres NF) for some type of rescue on a missing person.

Also mentioned the following locations:
Road 337
Aubry Hill

A fire station, small visitor center and campground are located at Dinky Creek on the Sierra National Forest south of Shaver Lake.
 

inigo88

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Every source I have shows 168.4000 as the input to Command 4 whose output frequency is 166.6125. Command 9 has an output of 170.0125 with an input of 165.2500. Command 9 is one of the repeater channels in the nationwide interoperability VHF federal response system. Lots of interesting things can be done in regard to frequency use on large incidents. This would involve using the input channel from one of the NIFC command repeater pairs and matching it up to one of the fed interoperability repeater output frequencies. I wonder if there are actually 2 command repeaters being used, Commands 4 and 9 network. In this configuration two portable repeaters are set up to collectively provide coverage to the entire fire. Those two repeaters are then linked with UHF frequencies and any transmission on either command channel input frequency will be transmitted on the output of both repeaters. Is it possible that you were hearing the output of the Command 9 repeater and the input of the Command 4 repeater?

I have a more detailed trip report in the following thread, including all the frequencies I heard related to the Rough Fire:
http://forums.radioreference.com/ca...a-kings-canyon-national-park-trip-report.html

I was camped in Grant Grove and had good line of sight to Air Attack, but not any of the ground units down in the canyon working the fire.

I recognized Air Attack's voice and callsign on 168.400 MHz PL 123.0 as the same person I had just heard on 170.0125 MHz PL 123.0. The original PL tone I posted in this thread was a typo. 170.0125 MHz was scratchy, and had the characteristic of a low power portable repeater output. IC and other command staff in the CP, as well as different divisions and Air Attack could all be heard on this frequency, all at the same signal strength. On the other hand only Air Attack could be heard on 168.400 MHz, and his signal was extremely clear, which would make sense for a simplex line of sight transmission given his position relative to me. While Air Attack was mid sentence giving long winded size ups, I was able to band scan 163-174 MHz and found him again on 170.0125 MHz, the repeater output. I never got a hit on the other frequencies you mentioned.

Given these factors I am near 100% certain that the 170.0125 MHz / 168.4000 MHz repeater pair was in use for fire command, with no simulcasting or cross-linking to secondary repeaters (at least none within range of me). I agree that this does not agree with nationwide lists that exist on RR and elsewhere online, but I verified it first hand from the field.
 

inigo88

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Regarding the incident name, I believe it was in reference to the Rough Creek, which is NW of Hume Lake. However, after chatting up an NPS ranger about the fire, he told us USFS crews had to hike in 6 hours one-way from the nearest road just to reach the fire. It certainly sounded like a rough one. :)
 

SCPD

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Monitoring 168.7375 now,

Heard aircraft who ID'd the freq as "Dinky heli-spot, air tac, air to ground" or something similar to Dinky, requesting assistance from Helicopter 527 (which appears based out of Los Padres NF) for some type of rescue on a missing person.

Also mentioned the following locations:
Road 337
Aubry Hill

The Rough Fire-North Zone incident command post is located at the Dinkey Creek Work Center and this should explain why you heard helo traffic using the name.

A second incident management team for the south zone has been assigned to the Rough Fire and the incident command post is at the Hume Lake ranger station in Dunlap. There are two command repeaters being used. On the north side there is a Command 11 (170.6875/166.5750) repeater near Geraldine Lake. On the south side a Command 9 (170.0125/165.2500) repeater has been placed at Delilah Lookout. This might be a change in the last 2-3 days, or whenever the second incident management team was assigned.

The zones are divided at the main Kings River on the west side of the fire and on the east side at the confluence of the Middle Fork of the Kings River and Silver Creek in a place called Little Tehipite Valley.

Inigo, what you were hearing on 170.0125 was coming from Delilah Lookout and I believe it is lower in elevation than Grant Grove. That would explain the marginal reception. I'm not sure if the repeater on Command 11 was set up on the north side when you were there. It would seem as though it was not as you should have had a pretty good path to it from where you were camped. I wonder if Delilah can be worked from Dinky Creek and if so a second repeater was not needed at the time. Since you did such a thorough job searching the band the Command 11 repeater was probably not in place.

Your findings on the mismatched input frequency is interesting. I wish I could get an official list of all the commands. There have a lot of reports from members that are hard to reconcile. .
 

SCPD

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Back to the subject of this thread. I heard National Air to Ground 34, 167.1500 being used as a ground tactical on the Walker Fire south of Lee Vining on the Inyo National Forest last week. Air to ground was on National AG 61, 168.2875 was being used as the only air to ground.

I heard some brief traffic on 173.6250 that was not "intra-crew" in nature, but between two crews or between a crew and overhead. In 2008 I received some information that the four new federal government wide low power, mobile common frequencies were assigned for logistical communications within a crew. Since then I have not heard if all four of these frequencies are still being used for this purpose. Other frequencies might be in use for these types of communications or the original plan might still be in place. I may have heard a quick conversation that did not fit the policy to use the four narrowband for intra crew comms. The four frequencies are 163.7125, 168.6125, 167.1375 and 173.6250.
 
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