Backcountry rangers

[firefighterbiddle]

Does anyone have the frequencies back-country rangers use???? Specificlly for region-5
Scott B

 

[sac-emt]

FirefighterBiddle

This is beyond my scope, but I always love to learn more.

Are you looking for the US Forest Service or California Department of Forestry's frequencies? Since we in CA & NV sit side by side, I might have something to assist you with your request.

If not, I know (as I have said many times over) the RR's here in CA or NV or across this great Country of ours, will provide you with what you need.

 

[SCPD]

Since you included the abbreaviation "R5" in your question, you must mean the Forest Service as their Region 5 includes most of California, with very small parts of Nevada and Oregon. The portion of the Toiyabe National Forest located in California is in Forest Service Region 4.

Anyway, I don't believe that wilderness rangers have an special frequency on any National Forest I'm aware of. On those Forests where fire and law enforcement are using Forest Net, recreation and all the other resources are using Admin Net and you will find the wilderness rangers there, as they are part of the recreation managememt organization. While you are in the backcountry you may hear them using various tacticals when they are line of sight, including R5 Work (164.150) and the two federal government common user frequencies of 168.350 and 163.100. As far as I know they try to stay off the NIFC tacticals of 168.050, 168.200, and 168.600.

If your question was not meant to exclude the National Park Service and the Bureau of Land Mangement, there again their wilderness rangers use the normal Park Net or in the case of the BLM, one of the two repeater pairs in use in Calif., either 166.375 or 166.4875. The only exception is Sequoia-Kings National Parks (administered as one unit), which has a dedicated backcountry net of 171.750.

CDF does not manage very much land except in a few small state forests. I don't believe those forests include lands in the California State Wilderness System (made up of state lands, mostly in State Parks) so they don't have any backcountry rangers. I don't think the wilderness included in state parks is large enough in area to assign rangers exclusively to it.

I should be receiving the annual information update on NPS/USFS/BLM/CDF frequencies in the next month or so. If there are any changes that would cause my answer to be different, I will start a thread.

I hope this answers your question.

 

[firefighterbiddle]

Thanks, that helps alot exsmokey. Any idea of what their call signs may be? Like "Back Country-1" or somthing like that?
Thanks again
Scott

 

[Progline]

I beleive that the backcountry guys are "WILDERNESS" units, and the Front Country Types are "RECREATION"

 

[SCPD]

I beleive that the backcountry guys are "WILDERNESS" units, and the Front Country Types are "RECREATION"

On Forests that are using the functional call signs this is correct. The first number following the functional name is the ranger district and that is followed by the persons rank in that function on that district. On those that still use numbers only, such as the Sierra National Forest, all recreation units identify with a number following the the district number that is quite often a six, but might be a four as it was before the Los Padres NF started using funcitonal call signs, and a five, in the case of the Cleveland, before they switched theirs. So a call sign for a wilderness ranger might sound like "3-6-5". On the Toiyabe National Forest, which borders Yosemite and several R5 Forests with wilderness areas, the recreation function has a number of two, and follows the agency number (7 in this case which is short for Forest number 17 in R4), followed by the district number, followed by the function, and finally by the rank.

When I was in Region 3 (Arizona and New Mexico) recreation was always designated by the number five. Some regions do not use numbers for any individual, instead using the persons last name. Regions 1 (Northern) and 2 (Rocky Mountain) do this, but some of the Forests in those regions are beginning to change as using a last name does not work well when people need to work other agency radio systems.

Some other regions have Regional Work channels as well with Regions 1 and 6 (Pacific Northwest) coming to mind. When I worked for the USFS I would have liked them to standardize the system nationwide. The functional callsigns work the best, especially during interagency operations.

Law enforcement in R5 id's with the Forest Number first, a letter next with Edward for LEO, Lincoln for Patrol Captain, David for Special Agent, and Charles for a special agent in charge of one of three different forest groups in R5 (grouped according to geographical location), and followed by the district number or rank among LEO's on the entire Forest. So the Inyo is Forest #4 and the Mammoth District is #2 so their LEO is 4-Edward-2. They tried to design a system that fit in better with the rest of law enforecement when they did this.

Other functions you may hear in R5 include: wildlife, timber (when the timber management function is large enough so it isn't lumped in with Resources), Resources (typically range, wildlife, hydrology, if they are lumped), Wildlife (big enough function on some districts to warrent this), Lands (administration of special use permits, easements, and land acquisistion/exchange), Recreation, and Wilderness. Engineering (engineers, building maintenance, road maintenance, and the like) usually uses Utility as a call sign. The rest are in fire and are self explanatory.

Hope that helps.