Since I see silverspy is from Reno I will comment a a bit on the Humboldt-Toiyabe Natinal Forest radio system. When I arrived on the Toiyabe in 1981 the radio system consisted of a few remote bases that were linked to Reno and Eastlake using 400 MHz frequencies. Eastlake is the Western Region HQ for NDF. There was an interagency dispatch center there called "Sierra Dispatch" as it dispatched for the Sierra Front only. After awhile the name was changed to "Eastlake" to eliminate confusion with the Sierra National Forest's dispatcher. The repeaters were not selectable by burst tone or CTCSS. You just turned your radio to channel 2 and you would then be transmitting on the input frequency. Whatever repeater was in range would key up and sometimes that meant 2 or more would key up. When the dispatcher read the weather it was done on channel 2 so in the Ranger Stations, which linked to mountain top remote bases, we listened to repeaters wars while trying to copy the information.
The dispatch center at Eastlake replaced the dispatch office in the Forest's warehouse located on 2nd street in Reno. That warehouse and work center were torn down to make way for expansions of the Washoe Medical Center. The old dispatcher identified as "400" which was taken from the call sign of KOC400. Bridgeport was identified as "652" as taken from the KMB652 callsign for that location. Fire apparatus identified with numerical callsings that did not include the word engine, dozer, or patrol. All other people used their last names. This was not the stuff for clear interagency communications. When we went to call signs for individuals on the Forest, some of the old time traditional R4 folks who were not used to interagency coordination on incidents protested not being able to use numbers for the ranger stations and their last names. Typical dispatches in R4 would sound like "Smith, 472", "This is Smith go ahead Bobby", "Yea Tommy, we got a call from the Edna's son at the Meadow View Lodge and they have been smelling smoke all morning, can you mosey up that way and take a look see." They didn't like other agencies on Forest Service incidents either. Fortunately, reason won out over tradition, and the Forest now has a more professional emergency response organization.
The Plan Caldera preperation became a good reason for funding requrests so the Toiyabe's system was replaced with microwave linked remote base/repeater combinations that used CTCSS for field selection. Some of the repeaters that didn't have commercial power were linked via 400 MHz to a given microwave site.
The other benefit and one that was designed was microwave system allowed for lots of voice/data channels for linking Bridgeport and other ranger stations with a phone system independent of the commercial system. We could dial up an access code on our phones and get a Reno dial tone in Bridgeport. This saved on long distance bills. We also had dedicated circuits to Menlo Park, the headquarters of the USGS scientists who monitor the seismic activity here. The Sheriff's department was also provided many voice/data circuits. All the utilities in Mono County come from the south, except for those in the Walker-Coleville-Topaz areas. The USMC Mountain Warfare Training Center is the end of the line for Southern California Ediison and Verizon. These utilities have one path that goes down through the Long Valley Caldera and there is not a duplicate or redundent system on another path. So when the Marines call their housing area north of Coleville on the phone the signal goes all the way down to the Mojave area, over the mountains via Tehacapi Pass, up the Central Valley, over Donner Pass, into Reno, and then south through western Nevada, to northern Mono County. Several hundred miles to call only 12 miles apart by road! The Toiyabe's new radio system provided an alternate path for the USFS and the Sheriff's office.
The Toiyabe's microwave system is then piggybacked onto the Nevada state system so that the dispatcher in Minden can bring up both the Toiyabe and Humboldt's radio systems statewide. Dispatching for both Forests is actually broken up between the interagency dispatch centers in Minden, Las Vegas, Winnemucca, and Elko.
