These are the banks I have in my home base station, mobiles, and handhelds:
0 Inyo National Forest - programmed with the tones for each of ten repeaters for Forest Net, Admin Net, and Service Net and the 400 MHz linking system. Includes initial attack tacticals, VHF AM aviation, and air guard/flight following.
1 Natural Resource and Fire Agencies - the Sierra National Forest, BLM, NPS, Fish and Game, State Parks, and local fire. I am able to hear both California and Nevada agencies, which is why I have 50 frequencies for this limited category of frequencies.
2 State and Local Agencies - CHP, Caltrans, Mono and Inyo Counties, Bishop and Mammoth PD and FD, and city services frequencies. All local fire department tactical frequencies for each fie district in the county used mostly for structural fires.
3 Local Businesses
4 Federal Large Fire - All NIFC command, tactical, logistics,; air guard/flight following, regionally and nationally assigned VHF AM aviation frequencies and the VHF FM air tactical frequencies; and all the misc. tacticals such as the federal commons, smoke jumper tac, etc.
5 State Large Fire - all the CDF command, tactical, VHF FM air tacticals and air to ground frequencies, OES, CALCORD, all three "White" mutual aid, the aviation frequencies in Bank 4, and state assigned VHF AM air to air tacticals.
6 Yosemite National Park Area (for travel to)
7 Inyo County (for travel to)
8 Utilities - SCE, L.A. City DWP eastern Sierra UHF and lowband system (Pacific Intertie DC transmission line), Verizon, cable TV companies, and the local geothermal plant. Includes all known 800/900 simplex tactical frequencies used by SCE for major damage to the grid.
9 Mammoth Mountain Ski Area - includes June Mountain Ski Area, the UHF/VHF system of MMSA used for support functions such as lodging, employee housing, etc. and with space for trying out new non ski area frequencies discovered in searches whose function is not known yet.
I have both the Federal and State Large Fire banks programmed into every file I have with the exception of my Arizona travel files where there are not enough state large fire frequencies to justify a separate bank. I rarely use these banks but dedicate 50 or 100 channels of memory to them anyway. If a local fire escapes initial attack or if I'm traveling and become aware of a large wildland fire within reception range, I don't want to be scrambling around trying to figure out what frequencies they are using and reprogramming lots of channels. With these banks always ready, I can just select them for scanning and hear almost all large wildland fire communications right away. The only thing I cannot hear right away are the VHF AM aviation "discrete frequencies", which are not really secret as the word "discrete" may imply, but are frequencies assigned by the FAA for an individual incident that needs its own frequencies just for the incident. They are assigned on a case by case basis depending on the needs of that incident.
