I was just asking.
Cleveland National Forest New Forest Net
- Thread starter KK6UME
- Start date
Rich (if I recall your name correctly!) What updates are you referring to? Sitton Peak?
It is in the list here:
US Forest Service - Cleveland National Forest (CA) - The RadioReference Wiki
Jim
Great document, Jim. Thank You!
Tonight I heard a couple of LE units on Forest Net announcing they were on tone 12 along with a particular road and mile marker. I don't want to say much about what they were doing unless someone wants to PM me. I did take Google maps and use the distance tool to estimate where they were and I can see why they wanted to use Sitton Peak but it doesn't have the LE channel apparently. Not enough room in the cabinet! I also tried using street view to see if I could spot the mile marker but had no luck with that.
I found this article which outline the format of the markers Are You Lost? How to Read a California Mileage Marker
And these from CalTrans
Postmile Services
postmile.dot.ca.gov
Yes to all, but I've lost quite a bit of brain power since I used the name Exsmokey. The wonderful sharpness and recall that I had is not nearly as good. I had a bad accident in late 2015 and in May 2016 I was in physical therapy learning how to walk again. I came within 3-5 millimeters from being paralyzed from the waist down. However, the back surgery I had was incredibly successful, although risky. The accident traumatized me and it seems I've had more than my share of that.
During the years of non membership I developed a couple of sources, after having lost a number of them prior to 2016. Age, Alzheimer's and retirements were the causes. I lurked on RR and met a person in 2019 who became a member at my suggestion. She and my wife really hit it off right away. I passed along a ton of stuff to her, which she used for posts and DB submissions. She in turn urged me to join about a year and a half after I did. She dropped her membership as her personal/family situations are all consuming and will be for a number of years to come.
Crap, this post was not well written. The Phoenix federal natural resource law enforcement center uses satellite communications in New Mexico for sure and I think Montana and another western state or two. I'm not positive if they use sat comms in other parts of Arizona as well. I've read the proposal for establishing one center for all USFS LE service in the state. The BLM, NPS, USFWS and USFS have a good dispatch center in San Bernardino for all of their functions so I don't see the BLM CA Desert District joining this center. The BLM Central and Northern California Districts might be better served by joining the USFS joint center. The Phoenix Center will not be involved in California.
All this could change, of course, as consolidations I never thought would happen have in the last 1-2 years. I think I will cover what I know about that in another thread.
Tonight I heard a couple of LE units on Forest Net announcing they were on tone 12 along with a particular road and mile marker. I don't want to say much about what they were doing unless someone wants to PM me. I did take Google maps and use the distance tool to estimate where they were and I can see why they wanted to use Sitton Peak but it doesn't have the LE channel apparently. Not enough room in the cabinet! I also tried using street view to see if I could spot the mile marker but had no luck with that.
I found this article which outline the format of the markers Are You Lost? How to Read a California Mileage Marker
And these from CalTrans
Postmile Services
The explanation of California's "
Tonight I heard a couple of LE units on Forest Net announcing they were on tone 12 along with a particular road and mile marker. I don't want to say much about what they were doing unless someone wants to PM me. I did take Google maps and use the distance tool to estimate where they were and I can see why they wanted to use Sitton Peak but it doesn't have the LE channel apparently. Not enough room in the cabinet! I also tried using street view to see if I could spot the mile marker but had no luck with that.
I found this article which outline the format of the markers Are You Lost? How to Read a California Mileage Marker
And these from CalTrans
Postmile Services
Thanks for those links. I used to look up a few things on the "Postmile Log" book that each district used to provide a link to on their webpages. It was the actual data. I can't find these books anymore. I'm glad that I saved the one for District 9, where I live. I use it to calculate the mileage of road bicycling trips. I've used the postmile signs to adjust the odometer on my bike. I got it down to within 10 feet in a mile. Do you know of any way to access it?
@es93546 and @Teotwaki , looks like we should delete out the remaining 168.025 MHz Law Nets from Angeles National Forest and Cleveland National Forest, is this correct that they've been phased out and replaced with the R5 Law Net? I also added a unique line for the P25 mode for R5 Law Net using the 40B NAC.
Edit: Is the NAC 4CE? Or 40B like was stated earlier in this thread?
Edit: Is the NAC 4CE? Or 40B like was stated earlier in this thread?
Hold up, 168.025 is now a simplex law tac for R5, mixed mode. Definitely keep it in the DB.
There used to be a limited number of sites where "National Air Guard" used repeaters. The USFS used to have many repeaters with a 600 kHz lower or higher frequency for repeater inputs. National Air Guard has an exclusive nationwide use on 168.6250 and so did the repeater input, 600 kHz lower at 168.0250. The USFS and NIFC decided to phase out all Air Guard repeaters sometime in the 1980's or early 1990's. The USFS wisely elected to use 168.0250, with its nationwide assignment, for law enforcement. It was designated as "National Law Enforcement Tactical." The Angeles and Cleveland are the only places where this frequency was used as a repeater output, with an input of 164.6250 input.
The Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit, the Lassen and the Sequoia are the units I know of that used the same input frequency with an output of 166.1250. This net may have had more widespread use, but I never monitored its use elsewhere. I think the USFS had a plan to install 166.1250 statewide. Then they knew that the 2019 reassignment was coming, probably 8-10 or more years prior. That is when 171.7875 out/162.9625 started showing up. I've observed reports or have monitored myself this net's use on the Angeles, Cleveland, Eldorado, Los Padres, Mendocino, Plumas and Sierra National Forests. Given that the Lake Tahoe Basin and Sequoia already had a 166.1250 repeater system in place, I'm guessing they are able to change the frequencies without replacing the hardware, but that is just a guess. I do know that the new 171.7875 system is planned for USFS statewide coverage, will be digital and will be encrypted. It is up in the air if one USFS LE dispatch center is going to be built to handle all traffic on it, or each USFS dispatch center will use it in their dispatch areas.
The "Common Channels" section should include 168.0250 as "National Law Enforcement Tactical." This should show up on every U.S. Forest Service page on every state's listing. It is in a category of its own, so listing it in the Nationwide Frequency section of the DB won't be as effective. It isn't a part of the NIFC or NIRSC cache so there is nowhere to put it in that section. I suspect some other USFS regions are developing similar systems on different frequencies.
On the esoteric, past history side, the repeaters on Air Guard were phased out in favor of installing multiple remote bases linked by 400 MHz and I'm told that at least on forest's with multiple remote bases the aircraft's signal was voted. I haven't spent any time in a USFS dispatch center lately to know this. We had a forest net voting system in place in New Mexico in 1981 so voting Air Guard is not a stretch. Air Guard can be a distraction if it is not an aircraft passing over your forest. In the olden days, when I first started with the agency it was called "Air Net" and was used for aviation dispatching, air-to-air tactics and air to ground. Very few mobile radios and handhelds had this frequency in them, it was installed in FMO vehicles only. For the rest of us we had to call dispatch on forest net to have them relay traffic on air net. I spent some time in some dispatch centers when this was the "do all" aviation frequency. Some forests used it as a dispatchers intercom as well. You would hear things like "A bar S (Apache-Sitgreaves), Coconino, Promontory's 351 degree is on us, according to crosses from Mouqi and Hutch." These named are lookouts. The traffic on it in dispatch was unwieldy. They had to turn it down or mute it. This changed when air to ground, air tacticals and air to air frequencies were assigned. What good is an emergency or guard net if you have to turn it down or mute it?
Definitely a good call that they added the “National Flight Following” repeaters and split that function away from Air Guard, so Air Guard could be maintained as a strictly emergency channel. I don’t believe every forest has National Flight Following, but it’s still very active all around the state and the aircraft know which forests have it so they can hail them on it and get info relayed if necessary.
As for 168.025 I’ll make sure it becomes an R5 common Nationwide LE Tac and is removed as forest-specific law nets from Cleveland and Angeles.
National Flight Following (NFF), referred to over the air as "National" uses remote bases and not repeaters. This was another good move by NIFC, who make a lot of good moves. Some dispatch areas don't do well with a single remote base that is located close to the dispatch center and is linked via 400 MHz frequencies. As you might expect, the Los Padres and Inyo National Forests with their long north to south configuration don't do well on NFF. The Los Padres would need at least 3 remote bases to cover the forest and the Inyo would need 3 also. On the Los Padres they would likely need one somewhere up on the Monterey Ranger District (Anderson, Chews or Cone), La Cumbre and Frazier or Sisar. On the Inyo the sites most likely would be Glass Mountain, Silver Peak (the existing lone base) and Olancha Peak. All of these have forest net repeaters. All could use 400 MHz links from Silver Peak. Multiple bases would need to be voted and restricted to the sites in that dispatch area. Once remotes are located at high elevations, traffic from all over is received.
Thank you for offering to include the National LE tac on the database. I have a ton of submissions I haven't gotten to, so a little bit of help is much appreciated.
Opfor2
Member
" I do know that the new 171.7875 system is planned for USFS statewide coverage, will be digital and will be encrypted. "
I'm wondering if this is a good move considering the type of terrain that the USFS covers.
I'm wondering if this is a good move considering the type of terrain that the USFS covers.
I know many believe that digital modulation will shorten coverage significantly by itself regardless of the frequency but well maintained modern equipment using P25 digital modulation should reach pretty much as well coverage-wise as analog FM given the same operating frequency band.
In fact, it will likely out-do the new narrower bandwidth +/- 2.5 kHz deviation variant of analog narrow band FM.
Notwithstanding the encryption part, assuming unencrypted P25 digital, from the point of view of the average scanner listener, I believe that it would be much more preferable to listen to the demodulated audio from a distant P25 digital signal with no noise in it rather than the demodulated audio from a 50% or less quieting +/- 2.5 kHz deviated analog FM signal! I find analog FM demodulated audio with the recently implemented more narrow deviation tedious and difficult to listen to when less than full quieting even with the proper equipment properly adjusted to handle said FM deviation.
And if you're referring to the encryption part, that will have no effect on the range in a digital signal. It's just a different order of "bits" - same stuff gets processed and sent just in a different order, essentially. The idea that encryption will affect the range of the signal is based on the old analog FM style of encryption wherein the audio had first to be converted from analog to digital, processed, then sent over the analog FM channel in a format compatible with the analog FM channel used including any repeaters. That did have issues with reduced range when running encryption (in that sense, it was more like "scrambling"). Modern digitally modulated signals have the same range whether encrypted or "in the clear".
-Mike
When the Inyo National Forest went to narrowband back after the turn of the century, coverage was degraded somewhat. If they ever go digital, in spite of what you say, I think coverage will degrade also. However, that is just an opinion from a non-techy type whose education was in a biological field and worked managing federal public land. My knowledge of radio is more from that of a ground pounder who got a lot of experience using various radios for 25 years in 4 states.
What I understand about digital is that it is an all or nothing operation. If a signal can't be fully decoded, that is, if anything is missing, you don't hear anything. At least that is what I've heard from a few techy types. An analog signal might give you a ton of background noise, but if you are experienced you can understand the most important portions of the signal. Given the topography I worked in we often had someone (with myself being one of those someones) who was in a very marginal location in critical circumstances. Sometimes you had to guess what was being said, based on the type of incident, and then ask the person if you copied what they were trying to communicate. We often used the expression "picking something out of the mud" to describe what we were doing.
As for the USFS R5 law enforcement net it will be digital and encrypted at some point in the future. I don't know who issued it, but a directive was issued that all federal law enforcement radio traffic is to be encrypted. This will require a large effort to put a lot of repeaters on the R5 LE Net out on the forests, some who have 12-18 repeaters. If they can't, complying with the directive will require they encrypt on the forest and admin nets, but only when law enforcement is involved. I have some GRE PSR-500/600 scanners that work on every system in our two county region except for Edison. If encryption is going to occur on those nets those scanners will be kicking out all that distorted traffic. Newer scanners don't pass on encryption and I don't really want to replace my 3 PSR's. Oh well, a first world problem!
"If a signal can't be fully decoded, that is, if anything is missing, you don't hear anything."
Not exactly, more accurately put - if the BER (Bit Error Rate) rises above a certain threshold, then the error correction will no longer be able to compensate and the reception will either garble badly or drop completely (without a detectable increase in background noise). This is analogous to the analog S/N ratio or SINAD (which includes distortion in a power computation) - at some point the noise and distortion become too great and the signal is lost for all practical purposes.
This is definitely NOT the same as "any piece missing and the whole goes away" to paraphrase what you stated. The error correction capability will compensate for a lot of missing "bits" but if too many are missing then at some point it will fail.
Really, kind of analogous to analog FM in that if the quieting goes down below a certain threshold your noise advantage over AM goes in reverse, especially at very low deviation narrow bandwidth variations.
I can't cite these as I've only read in various places but I have seen references to studies with modern vocoders in LMR radios that seem to show an actual increase in range relative to analog FM, especially the newer narrower +/- 2.5kHz deviation version. From what I have read, all else being equivalent (same frequency, power level, radio, antenna, etc.) the digital modulation retained complete readability at the edge of the coverage while the analog FM was so noisy as to be practically unreadable.
Now, I'm not saying that every LMR usage should switch to some form of narrowband digital modulation BUT I DO think it (digital radio modulation method) gets a way worse "rap" than it should.
Now I will maintain that analog FM is "simple and robust", technology-wise, meaning well-known, ease of maintenance, rugged, cost effective, etc. There's definitely a place for that! It's cost effective, proven, and works. But digital is getting better and better all the time and the price difference is getting smaller (given an equivalent feature set).
For me, based on what I know, I think if I were given a choice to rely on I would rather rely on a modern digital mode (using the latest DSP engines, vocoder implementations, etc.) such as DMR, NXDN, or even the modern implementation of P25 (which is a relative "old" digital modulation method) over the narrower narrowband FM with the +/- 2.5 kHz deviation. But, now you change the analog choice to the "old" +/- 5 kHz deviation narrowband FM and I'd be less sure.
And full quieting FM at +/- 5 kHz deviation or more...well, though I am impressed with the progress of narrowband digital I have to admit that I am still partial to that old analog LMR flagship!
-Mike
Not exactly, more accurately put - if the BER (Bit Error Rate) rises above a certain threshold, then the error correction will no longer be able to compensate and the reception will either garble badly or drop completely (without a detectable increase in background noise). This is analogous to the analog S/N ratio or SINAD (which includes distortion in a power computation) - at some point the noise and distortion become too great and the signal is lost for all practical purposes.
This is definitely NOT the same as "any piece missing and the whole goes away" to paraphrase what you stated. The error correction capability will compensate for a lot of missing "bits" but if too many are missing then at some point it will fail.
Really, kind of analogous to analog FM in that if the quieting goes down below a certain threshold your noise advantage over AM goes in reverse, especially at very low deviation narrow bandwidth variations.
I can't cite these as I've only read in various places but I have seen references to studies with modern vocoders in LMR radios that seem to show an actual increase in range relative to analog FM, especially the newer narrower +/- 2.5kHz deviation version. From what I have read, all else being equivalent (same frequency, power level, radio, antenna, etc.) the digital modulation retained complete readability at the edge of the coverage while the analog FM was so noisy as to be practically unreadable.
Now, I'm not saying that every LMR usage should switch to some form of narrowband digital modulation BUT I DO think it (digital radio modulation method) gets a way worse "rap" than it should.
Now I will maintain that analog FM is "simple and robust", technology-wise, meaning well-known, ease of maintenance, rugged, cost effective, etc. There's definitely a place for that! It's cost effective, proven, and works. But digital is getting better and better all the time and the price difference is getting smaller (given an equivalent feature set).
For me, based on what I know, I think if I were given a choice to rely on I would rather rely on a modern digital mode (using the latest DSP engines, vocoder implementations, etc.) such as DMR, NXDN, or even the modern implementation of P25 (which is a relative "old" digital modulation method) over the narrower narrowband FM with the +/- 2.5 kHz deviation. But, now you change the analog choice to the "old" +/- 5 kHz deviation narrowband FM and I'd be less sure.
And full quieting FM at +/- 5 kHz deviation or more...well, though I am impressed with the progress of narrowband digital I have to admit that I am still partial to that old analog LMR flagship!
-Mike
Updated to add in "320R" who was on Forest Net and checking in with dispatch from area 20. Guessing it was Engine 320R so maybe not needed in this list...
320R
Brush 288
Comms 22, 26, 27, 28, 29
2Charles1 (supervisor?)
2Edward 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, 11, 12
Engineer 325
2King 1 & 5 (canine units)
Lookout 03, 41, 50, 51 57, 62 (Palomar)
Patrol 21, 22, 23, 33, 34, 41, 42
Prevention 24
Ranger 2
Rec 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 31
Trails 21
2Tom 2 (LEO Trainee)
Utility 36
320R
Brush 288
Comms 22, 26, 27, 28, 29
2Charles1 (supervisor?)
2Edward 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, 11, 12
Engineer 325
2King 1 & 5 (canine units)
Lookout 03, 41, 50, 51 57, 62 (Palomar)
Patrol 21, 22, 23, 33, 34, 41, 42
Prevention 24
Ranger 2
Rec 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 31
Trails 21
2Tom 2 (LEO Trainee)
Utility 36
In the last 2-3 years the USFS supplemented its direction on the numbering and displaying of fire apparatus to have all reserve units to have "R" at the end of the numbers. Some NF's were using just another number in the last number sequence, one that did not correspond to another fire station, some were placing the number used by the Forest Supervisor's Office (SO) personnel identifier in place of the ranger district number and another method I can't remember that I've seen outside of California. However, you won't find a lot of reserve engines in other regions.
Examples of the SO method are on the Angeles and Inyo National Forest where both use the number 5. Now, reserve engines are usually not permanent equipment. All vehicles in the USFS fleet have established parameters of either years or mileage for when they are taken out of service. When I was working all pickups and SUV's were replaced after 7 years. There might have been a combined year and mileage parameter, I never really asked about it too much. My rigs always had enough mileage to turn it in at the 7 year mark. I think engines are and were replaced at about 10 years and I don't know if mileage was considered also. Of course dozers and the like had parameters measured in hours, however, there might have been some parameters for safety. The newest heavy equipment has structural features to ensure operator safety that the older units don't have. These parameters were established using data collected for the maintenance costs of the various types of vehicles. In any case there is an option to hold equipment over for a year, perhaps more, but I don't remember anything being held over for more than 2 or perhaps 3 years. The holdover could occur on the same National Forest or sometimes NF's picked up other NF's equipment and held it over. There has to be justification for the holdover. An example would be a car, van or station wagon, used by the Supervisor's Office to transport 5 or more people to meetings and training held over to use for a special crew, whose funding is only guaranteed for 1 or 2 years (volunteer, YACC and similar) or to put fire apparatus in reserve.
The southern California NF's have so many engines that there is likely a supply of holdover units every year. I fact, there are so many engines on each NF that each forest might have enough eligible for holdover every year. The current engine identification system directive was issued about 10-12 years ago and some engines were fairly new at the time. The USFS made sure that repainting and renumbering engines was not going to happen on existing engines This is why there are still first line engines without the 3 digit number on them. I think that the newest holdover rigs will just have a "R" placed at the end. I don't think they are going to have any of the numbers changed, but time will tell.
Now for some trivia about other vehicle markings.
There is a number on every USFS rig that doesn't change at all and that is the equipment or shop number. It is on the door of each vehicle right below the USFS shield. These numbers have some type of logic to them, with engines starting with certain numbers, SUV's with another, etc. Numbers are eventually reused once a number has been out of service for awhile. These numbers are issued on a USFS region basis, not nationwide. License plates are issued on a national basis and this is the case for all government vehicles with the letter of the department being the first character. So the USFS has A for Agriculture and the BLM has I for Interior, etc.
The cost of USFS vehicles is lower than GSA vehicles, which a lot of agencies use. The NPS and the BLM use a lot of these, but usually not for fire. The GSA license plates begin with a G in the upper left hand corner, then a diagonally placed 2 numbers, which stand for the class or type of vehicle it is. The USFS used to pick these up for seasonal vehicles, but then the GSA started charging their monthly rate while they sat in the winter storage. That pushed their cost too high and when I was retiring we were trying to figure how to solve this. It's very hard to get a new vehicle added to the fleet or to change to a different type of vehicle. There are all sorts of justification papers to write, including justifying what type of rig it is, yada, yada. I needed a one ton with a utility/toolbox bed, but I gave up as I just didn't have the time for the writing/phone calls that it would have taken. I don't think anyone, but fire management, has added a vehicle in quite a long time. So many positions being cut, not funded or vacant, the fleet has likely shrunken quite a bit.
