Federal/ATF/Secret Servcice

[repairman222]

I Have noticed on the RadioReference, Wiki there are list of Federal, ATF and Secret Service Frequencies. As anyone ever received any of them? Or are they all old frequencies or do the use Nextel or different brand of radios? I know all Systems and Frequencies have to be issuesd by the FCC, but do they really???

 

[RaleighGuy]

I Have noticed on the RadioReference, Wiki there are list of Federal, ATF and Secret Service Frequencies. As anyone ever received any of them? Or are they all old frequencies or do the use Nextel or different brand of radios?

Yes they are heard, but usage, and encryption varies by area and user, on thing about them is there is no consistency. Also, usage amount varies, you might hear heavy usage for a week/day and then silence for a month.

I know all Systems and Frequencies have to be issuesd by the FCC, but do they really???

Federal frequencies are not issued or assigned by the FCC.

 

[ecps92]

Correct, for the OP, Federal Frequencies are thru the NTIA under the Dept of Commerce

Federal frequencies are not issued or assigned by the FCC.

 

[ecps92]

for my area of monitoring.
Federal - lots of fun to listen to almost daily
ATF - is a rare catch as they tend to be more of a Target Hit [no pun] than some active surv ops [of late]
USSS - everyone thinks POTUS etc, but there is much more to the USSS and yes they are active

Nextel has been Dead since being taken over by Sprint, yes similar types of applications, but many an agency
has gotten burned by the reliance on them, and many have built out robust regional networks and/or signed-onto
Regional/State TRS's in addition to leaving their own frequencies up and running.

YMMV as to what you find/hear and the best hint is, these agencies are not like listening to your local PD/FD/DPW/EMS where you
will likely have daily activity... OP-Temp varies, could be days, weeks, months before you hear something and never ever rule out Holidays and weekends.

I Have noticed on the RadioReference, Wiki there are list of Federal, ATF and Secret Service Frequencies. As anyone ever received any of them? Or are they all old frequencies or do the use Nextel or different brand of radios? I know all Systems and Frequencies have to be issuesd by the FCC, but do they really???

 

[edweirdFL]

and/or signed-onto Regional/State TRS's in addition to leaving their own frequencies up and running.

This is the case. Both government and private TRS can be used by the most surprising folks and they can hide low volume or sporadic use that is easy to miss on a busy system.

 

[ecps92]

IMHO it is not hiding, it is using the best available resource to accomplish the mission, altho I've not run across them using a Private system, only Local/State/County or Regional, but here in New England it is a very rare occurence to find them not on their NTIA VHF/UHF allocations, unless handed a spare portable from a task force for a specific mission.

This is the case. Both government and private TRS can be used by the most surprising folks and they can hide low volume or sporadic use that is easy to miss on a busy system.

 

[Scott73]

States must allow access on their public safety systems since the frequencies belong to the federal govt.

 

[KevinC]

States must allow access on their public safety systems since the frequencies belong to the federal govt.

Just curious, does your other account have the same opinion? Asking for a friend.

 

[GlobalNorth]

Having been a Fed for an alphabet agency, radios are not used very much. Certainly not like the local PD, Sheriff, or Highway Patrol.

My initial Fed vehicle had a radio, but it was a cast off that no one wanted to drive since it looked like a government car. My other autos had no radios, no emergency lights/siren, etc. If I needed a radio for a specific case, I went to the tech shop and checked one out which was rare.

Most stuff was done via landline telephone or wireless.

 

[sflmonitor]

States must allow access on their public safety systems since the frequencies belong to the federal govt.

Huh? This statement is 100% incorrect. Federal agencies must be authorized on state, county, local systems, often in the form of MOUs. Sometimes the feds will even pay, depending on the system and access. Other times they are given free access for interoperability usage. But always with permission from the system managers.

 

[krokus]

There are a number federal agencies on MPSCS, many of them are LE. That said, most of the LE that I interface with mainly use their own assets.

 

[es93546]

Huh? This statement is 100% incorrect. Federal agencies must be authorized on state, county, local systems, often in the form of MOUs. Sometimes the feds will even pay, depending on the system and access. Other times they are given free access for interoperability usage. But always with permission from the system managers.

I'll second that! I had a King Handheld the last half of my U.S. Forest Service career, mid to late 80's on, because the agency first started purchasing them at that point. I had a couple of business frequencies I needed in it, ski area related and I could not put them in the radio until the signator on their FCC license signed a letter with language that satisfied some radio managers. I also obtained one for local water and sewer district as we interfaced with them for our facilities on an occasional basis. There are enough MOU's, coop op agreements and annual operating plans on file with federal agencies that have radio systems to fill a large room in their Washington Offices. The USFS does not have such a room, they are only filed at the lowest level they can be, which in the USFS is at the Forest Supervisor's Office. They don't rise to the attention of anyone in the regional or Washington office level unless they have more widespread relevance.

The number of signed agreements the U.S. Forest Service has covering frequencies for wildland fire and law enforcement in California has to be a large number. There are agreements with counties, cities, volunteer fire departments and utility districts. The federal government itself makes it a requirement to have these procedures. I suppose if the fed government wanted to they could use the supremacy clause of the Constitution to do something like sflmonitor suggests, but they have taken specific means to make sure they can't.

 

[APX8000]

Sometimes there are MOUs, sometimes there are handshakes with system admins. Its become more and more common for the feds to have access to these systems because of working relationships, task force operations, etc. instead of constantly tossing portables through open car windows. But no one HAS to just give them permission, trust me when I say that still happens, always politics involved behind the scenes. Now there are stipulations sometimes written in grant funding that say if the feds give you money, then you have to give them subscriber access. Even with this stipulation, sometimes the feds STILL have to pay subscriber fees for system maintenance just like everyone else. All depends how things are written.

 

[APX8000]

Having been a Fed for an alphabet agency, radios are not used very much. Certainly not like the local PD, Sheriff, or Highway Patrol.

My initial Fed vehicle had a radio, but it was a cast off that no one wanted to drive since it looked like a government car. My other autos had no radios, no emergency lights/siren, etc. If I needed a radio for a specific case, I went to the tech shop and checked one out which was rare.

Most stuff was done via landline telephone or wireless.

I don't know what Agency you worked for but I will say even the GSA leases now are fully outfitted with lights, sirens, radios (mostly O3 heads) covert antennas, power inverters for laptops, etc. for most of the alphabet agencies. Except of course the feebs who love their trunk mounted VHF whips ! Thats why we joke the FBI stands for Famous But Incompetent.

 

[sflmonitor]

I don't know what Agency you worked for but I will say even the GSA leases now are fully outfitted with lights, sirens, radios (mostly O3 heads) covert antennas, power inverters for laptops, etc. for most of the alphabet agencies. Except of course the feebs who love their trunk mounted VHF whips ! Thats why we joke the FBI stands for Famous But Incompetent.

I agree. Most federal law enforcement agencies have mobile radios and light/siren packages. However, I was surprised to see one of the smaller fed LE agencies here is south Florida still not issuing portables to each agent. Instead, they had a cache of maybe 10 XTS5000s that were signed out as needed. This was only about 4 years ago. I will say that they all had XTL8500s in all their vehicles and a very nice light/siren package. The XTLs were a bit of overkill since they only had one tac channel and the rest of the stuff was the CBP network. I was told that setup worked for them.

 

[es93546]

Sometimes there are MOUs, sometimes there are handshakes with system admins. Its become more and more common for the feds to have access to these systems because of working relationships, task force operations, etc. instead of constantly tossing portables through open car windows. But no one HAS to just give them permission, trust me when I say that still happens, always politics involved behind the scenes. Now there are stipulations sometimes written in grant funding that say if the feds give you money, then you have to give them subscriber access. Even with this stipulation, sometimes the feds STILL have to pay subscriber fees for system maintenance just like everyone else. All depends how things are written.

I can say from experience in the U.S. Forest Service and the wildland fire community that MOU's etc. had to be signed. LE tends to be different on many issues. I find LE to be far less knowledgeable about radios, to put it politely, so what you say doesn't surprise me. The fire service has people who really know their radio stuff as mutual aid can be a daily experience and it can involve going to all lower 48 states with apparatus, as well as Alaska, Hawaii and Australia when they fly. Law enforcement does this far less often and as a result their knowledge of how the Incident Command System works is lower. I once had a county deputy speed up to where I was working on an incident, get out of this rig, walk up to me and throw his hat on the ground while angrily stated "(my name), what in the HELL are you doing." I quickly replied "I'm following the incident commander's instructions, who YOU and I are working for right now." He replies "SAYS WHO?" I replied "federal law." I then walked away to continue doing my work. I had started the evacuation of a good size campground (72 sites), but then the IC told me they had the fire knocked down and to cancel the evac, so I went back to the few sites I had already visited and told them they didn't have to leave. The deputy had heard the cancellation of the evac. and chose to put on his temper tantrum right in front of a few of the campsites. He tried to take the position that we (feds) could not dictate where people could or not be on national forest land, being in the sole jurisdiction of the county sheriff. He indicated his judgement was that an evacuation should occur. My body language signaled "go suck an egg" and he left. Oh well, he didn't make it to retirement in that job anyway.

I worked with the CHP, state DOT and L.A. County Sheriff's Office in southern California on some major fires and they are dialed in on the ICS. All of them were great people to be around as well. As a crew boss I could sometimes ask them for favors in regards to traffic control and roadblocks and they bent over backwards to accommodate my requests. To be clean with ICS I always called my division supervisor to pass along info of those requests. Some of them said "do whatever the situation dictates there, you don't need my blessing" and some did not.

 

[GlobalNorth]

I don't know what Agency you worked for but I will say even the GSA leases now are fully outfitted with lights, sirens, radios (mostly O3 heads) covert antennas, power inverters for laptops, etc. for most of the alphabet agencies. Except of course the feebs who love their trunk mounted VHF whips ! Thats why we joke the FBI stands for Famous But Incompetent.

Vehicle stops were prohibited by unmarked vehicles. If you wanted an investigatory stop or to do a take down, you called in a marked local/state police vehicle to do that. Vehicle pursuits were absolutely forbidden for any reason/s short of agent down-TS/SCI/codeword national security issues. Leased vehicles went to senior folks so they always got the fresh rides - again, no lights, no sirens, computers were still in the future, and mobile radios were not standard issue.

The FBI does a lot of plain ol' police work here on the Rez. Armed robberies, murders on the Rez, etc. don't require secret squirrel gear.

 

[Giddyuptd]

Fwiw fbi in El paso, Albuquerque do have talk groups on apx 8000s on those 700 mhz systems, encrypted.

 

[danesgs]

Having been a Fed for an alphabet agency, radios are not used very much. Certainly not like the local PD, Sheriff, or Highway Patrol.

My initial Fed vehicle had a radio, but it was a cast off that no one wanted to drive since it looked like a government car. My other autos had no radios, no emergency lights/siren, etc. If I needed a radio for a specific case, I went to the tech shop and checked one out which was rare.

Most stuff was done via landline telephone or wireless.

Even back "In the Day", 1980's, USSS used early cell phones for person to person talk, although WFO's used radio to coordinate certain ops but it was spotty. FBI and DEA used radio but again usually to setup certain things before a bust. Major crimes, like bank robberies went out over FBI channels but then got quiet again. Most all Fed agencies today that are LE are encrypted in the DC area accept security for places like the Dept. of agriculture or such. I would assume even the FED cell phones today are not your average Iphone at this point.

KJ4DGE

 

[spacellamaman]

the best available resource to accomplish the mission

snap-chat

cuz all the Kool-Feds are doing it