Black Rock Ranger station

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P25Radio

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Not sure if this is the right thread area. I was looking for ranger freqs for the Black Rock Ranger station on Sherman Pass/ Nine Mile Canyon rd. This in up near The Monache Meadows area. Also looking for fire dispatch freqs for the same area. I do know that there is a fire station there but not sure who's control it is under and who does the dispatching for both.
 

SCPD

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Not sure if this is the right thread area. I was looking for ranger freqs for the Black Rock Ranger station on Sherman Pass/ Nine Mile Canyon rd. This in up near The Monache Meadows area. Also looking for fire dispatch freqs for the same area. I do know that there is a fire station there but not sure who's control it is under and who does the dispatching for both.

Much of the land the Sherman Pass passes through is administered by the BLM. I call the entire road the Sherman Pass road, although portions of it are also known as the 9 Mile Canyon Road and the Kennedy Meadows Road. East of the Sierra crest (at the Inyo and Tulare County line) the BLM land is administered by the California Desert District, Ridgecrest Field Office. The California Desert District is dispatched by the Federal Interagency Communications Center (FICC) in San Bernardino. West of the crest the BLM land is administered by the Central California District (CCD), Bakersfield Field Office. The BLM Kennedy Meadows fire station is located about a mile west of the crest. It is a part of the CCD. The CCD is dispatched by Central California Interagency Communications Center in Porterville.

The eastern boundary of the Sequoia National Forest is located west of the Kennedy Meadows store and about 1/4 to 1/2 mile east of the south fork of the Kern River. Blackrock Station is part of the Kern River Ranger District of the Sequoia National Forest. The Sequoia National Forest and the Central California District of the BLM are both dispatched by the interagency center in Porterville.

The Radio Reference database has a page for the Forest Service and another for the BLM in California. They are accessed under the California areawide frequencies block on the main page. The Sequoia National Forest and the two BLM districts frequencies can be found there.
 

SCPD

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P25Radio, did my post help you at all? If not just let me know and I will explain it differently.
 

perthos

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Black Rock Ranger station frequencies

Exsmokey, I realize this is an old thread, but frankly, I can't find the USFS or BLM frequencies at all for this site. I tried drilling down through California and then Tulare County, but all I saw were County frequencies.

Like P25Radio, I am often in the Kennedy Meadows and Monache areas, and I would like to listen in.

Can you suggest how I can find these frequencies?

Thanks!
 

SCPD

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Federal frequencies are not buried down in the county pages. When you open up the California database page look down in the lower right hand portion of the page for the "California Areawide Frequencies" heading. Scroll down to the United States Forest Service link. Once that is opened scroll down to the Sequoia National Forest. I would also suggest entering the Inyo National Forest south forest net. A large portion of the Kern Plateau is on the Inyo NF. The Olancha Peak repeater on Tone 6 (156.7) is used for the Inyo portion of the plateau.

You should also click on the Bureau of Land Management link. Program frequencies for the California Desert District and the Central California District. The California Desert District frequencies will not be heard a few miles into Tulare Co. The nearest repeater is on Government Peak, south of Ridgecrest. The nearest repeater on the Central California District is on Bear Peak, which is located north of Walker Pass on CA State Route 178. The entire length of the Sherman Pass road is on the Sequoia NF and so are the areas north, south and west of the junction of this road and the Kern River road/Great Western Divide Highway. All of the Sequoia NF portion of the Kern Plateau is on the Kern River Ranger District so the radio identifiers of people an apparatus will start with a 4. The Sequoia National Forest repeaters that cover the Kern Plateau are Sherman Peak and Olancha Peak.

Dispatch is provided by the Central California Interagency Communications Center in Porterville, which uses the designator "Porterville." This center also dispatches for the Central California District of the BLM. The BLM's Central California District is dispatched by the Federal Interagency Communications Center in San Bernardino and uses the identifier "San Bernardino."

You should also open the National Park Service link and program the backcountry net of Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Parks into your scanner. It is possible that the repeater that covers the Kern River portion of the park can be received on the Kern Plateau. A trip to the Bald Mountain lookout is worthwhile. The view of the Middle Fork of the Kern River Canyon is excellent from there as is the view of the distinctive looking Farewell Gap, located at the south rim of the Mineral King Valley. The California Desert District nets can be heard from there as well as the Angeles NF, the San Bernardino and probably a couple of repeaters on the Los Padres NF. I did not have a good handheld scanner the last time I was at this lookout so I can't tell you everything that can be heard from Bald Mountain, but given the area that can be seen from there I'm sure the listening from there would be quite interesting. Death Valley National Park and the Mojave National Preserve are also possible receptions from there. The lookout is not at that high of an elevation, but its location is just right to receive a lot of distant signals. It is possible that Joshua Tree National Park can be received from there as well.

I like the area as well, even though I haven't been there for a long time. It is out of the way and lacks any big recreation sites to draw large numbers of people. The whole area is pretty quiet in the middle of the week.

**EDIT** The Tulare County Sheriff's Department covers the area on their south net with a repeater on Sherman Peak. Inyo County has one on Government Peak. You won't hear Cal Fire and most likely will not hear the CHP, however at least the eastern portion of the plateau is in the Mojave Area Office and the nearest remote base is located on Government Peak.
 
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SCPD

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Dispatch is provided by the Central California Interagency Communications Center in Porterville, which uses the designator "Porterville." This center also dispatches for the Central California District of the BLM. The BLM's Central California District is dispatched by the Federal Interagency Communications Center in San Bernardino and uses the identifier "San Bernardino."

I made an error here. The Central California Interagency Communications Center provides dispatching for the BLM's Central California District. The Federal Interagency Communications Center in San Bernardino provides dispatching for the California Desert District. Every once in a while I get them mixed up because their 3 letter ICS (Incident Command System) identifiers are similar with the former being CND and the latter CDD.

I mentioned who dispatches for the Sequoia, but did not do so for the Inyo NF where the Owens Valley Interagency Communications Center provides dispatching and uses the radio designator "Inyo." The Monache Meadows area is on the Inyo National Forest and its boundary on the south end is on the Monache road, just after the Snake Creek bridge is crossed.

The USFS engine quartered at the Blackrock station is Engine 41. There is also Patrol 41, but I'm not sure if this person works out of this station. The WildWeb CAD does not show apparatus locations anymore, but the Sequoia is still showing locations for the engines.

There are three frequencies used to cover all of the wilderness area of Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Park. I would recommend you program all three. It is difficult to predict, based on map locations, what repeaters you might hear from various parts of the Kern Plateau.

Other than some microwave links the only radio gear on Sherman Peak belongs to the USFS and the Tulare County Sheriff's Department.
 

perthos

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Wow! Excellent information!

Thanks for the thorough coverage of the repeater network in the Kern Plateau. I have printed most of the frequencies and will see what I can hear once I am north of Troy Meadows. I'll have my 2m radio with a tall antenna on the Jeep that should reach the lower bands reasonably well. The scanner is still on the bench waiting for the final wiring to get installed (on a cooler afternoon, sadly).

And for the links on the database page, I thought I looked everywhere, but missed the links in the obvious location. That's what I was looking for!

Thanks again. I will post any results I find this weekend.
 

ladn

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It's been a few years since I visited Blackrack and Monache. The last time I was up there Blackrock station was on the Sequoia NF net as was the nearby Sherman Peak lookout. Monache Meadows was on the Inyo NF system (off Onyx Peak).

Because of the terrain, much of the Kern Plateau area is difficult to monitor, especially mobile. And once we were on the Monache Meadow 4x4 road or the Sherman Pass 4x4 road, there was virtually no contact with 2M repeaters. Simplex worked really well though.
 

SCPD

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It's been a few years since I visited Blackrack and Monache. The last time I was up there Blackrock station was on the Sequoia NF net as was the nearby Sherman Peak lookout. Monache Meadows was on the Inyo NF system (off Onyx Peak).

Because of the terrain, much of the Kern Plateau area is difficult to monitor, especially mobile. And once we were on the Monache Meadow 4x4 road or the Sherman Pass 4x4 road, there was virtually no contact with 2M repeaters. Simplex worked really well though.

Nice report. The repeater covering the Inyo NF portion of the Kern Plateau is on Olancha Peak. It's been located there for at least 34 years. I used to call my dispatcher on it when I reached the top of Cajon Pass to advise my location and estimated return time. I never traveled to a fire via Highway 14 and I'm curious if I could have keyed it up in the Palmdale to Acton portion of that road. When the Inyo used burst tones many years ago they had either 4 or 5 different tones designated A-D or A-E. The repeater on Mt. Warren on the west side of the Mono Lake Basin and Olancha Peak were on the same tone. The beeps were rather annoying.

A bit off topic, but I was able to key up the Mammoth Mountain repeater on U.S. 101 south of Paso Robles while assigned to a fire on the Los Padres. I was able to copy the ranger station in Mammoth, but with considerable background noise and it was the same on their end. I could key up the same repeater in downtown Fresno full quieting using the low power setting on a King handheld.
 
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