Federal CTCSS Codes

[TexScan780D]

I found the Federal NAC codes, but not the CTCSS codes on RR. Looking for 118.8.

Thanks

 

[ecps92]

I don't recall 118.8 being a Standard Tone for any individual Federal Agency.

What Freq and Location ?

CBP was 100.0
SS was 103.5
DEA was 156.7
FBI was 167.9
but other than that it was Wild-Wild West

I found the Federal NAC codes, but not the CTCSS codes on RR. Looking for 118.8.

Thanks

 

[nd5y]

In Texas FEMA used 118.8 on 139.95 and 173.625.

 

[TexScan780D]

I don't recall 118.8 being a Standard Tone for any individual Federal Agency.

What Freq and Location ?

170.8375

 

[ecps92]

Please advise where ? :roll:
and update your profile to indicate your Primary QTH

170.8375

 

[ecps92]

I've had them on 118.8, but also 141.3, 146.2, 156.7, etc and before P25 each USAR team was assigned it's on CTCSS

In Texas FEMA used 118.8 on 139.95 and 173.625.

 

[SCPD]

The U.S. Forest Service has established 16 Tone Nationwide Standard. Info on it is posted on this wiki page:

INational Incident Radio Support Cache - The RadioReference Wiki

Not every Forest Service region (there are 9 nationwide) is in compliance with the standard. With each passing year more of them are.

For simplicity and convenience for apparatus and people traveling about the country on temporary assignments and fires the National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are adopting these standard 16's in their radio systems. The most often used radio in those agencies, the Bendix-King has multiple groups of 16 frequencies that includes the capacity for 16 selectable tones. It makes things a lot less confusing and easier to program if the same 16 tones are used by all land management, natural resource type agencies. In California Cal Fire and Caltrans use the same tones. Most other California agencies do also, with some exceptions due to a number of factors.

Disparate tones was listed as an issue in the 2013 deaths of 19 members of the Granite Mtn. hotshot crew on the Yarnell Hill Fire.

The National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) has adopted these 16 standard tones for use with the National Incident Radio Support Cache system, the largest radio cache in the world.

I know this standard is limited in the arena of all federal agencies, but at least someone is trying to standardize.

 

[ecps92]

Yes - but he was asking about a Common/Standard of Tone for an Agency, ie When Feds were mostly Analog

ie:
167.9 - 99% of the time you knew it was Efrem Zimbalist Jr. and the FBI
103.5 - 99% of the time you knew it was the Secret Service Robert Conrad

Yes many Agencies now have standards for common Pick Lists of PL's and those PL charts convert to P25 NACs..

167.9 Hz became a P25 of $167
156.7 Hz became a P25 of $156

The U.S. Forest Service has established 16 Tone Nationwide Standard. Info on it is posted on this wiki page:

INational Incident Radio Support Cache - The RadioReference Wiki

Not every Forest Service region (there are 9 nationwide) is in compliance with the standard. With each passing year more of them are.

For simplicity and convenience for apparatus and people traveling about the country on temporary assignments and fires the National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are adopting these standard 16's in their radio systems. The most often used radio in those agencies, the Bendix-King has multiple groups of 16 frequencies that includes the capacity for 16 selectable tones. It makes things a lot less confusing and easier to program if the same 16 tones are used by all land management, natural resource type agencies. In California Cal Fire and Caltrans use the same tones. Most other California agencies do also, with some exceptions due to a number of factors.

Disparate tones was listed as an issue in the 2013 deaths of 19 members of the Granite Mtn. hotshot crew on the Yarnell Hill Fire.

The National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) has adopted these 16 standard tones for use with the National Incident Radio Support Cache system, the largest radio cache in the world.

I know this standard is limited in the arena of all federal agencies, but at least someone is trying to standardize.

 

[SCPD]

Yes - but he was asking about a Common/Standard of Tone for an Agency, ie When Feds were mostly Analog

ie:
167.9 - 99% of the time you knew it was Efrem Zimbalist Jr. and the FBI
103.5 - 99% of the time you knew it was the Secret Service Robert Conrad

Yes many Agencies now have standards for common Pick Lists of PL's and those PL charts convert to P25 NACs..

167.9 Hz became a P25 of $167
156.7 Hz became a P25 of $156

My perspective is that of someone who lives in a rural area of the west where the federal systems are still predominantly analog. There are exceptions with some national parks. In the rural west the federal systems are mostly those of the NPS, USFS, BLM, USFWS and near the borders, the CBP. The latter is mostly encrypted so is of little interest to me when I travel in those areas.

In the area I live in we don't have FBI, DEA, FPS radio systems as they don't have much business here. I know this because I've had access to the special use permit files for electronic sites in the area, almost all of which are on National Forest land.

Having a single output CTCSS tone or NAC for one agency is not universal in the federal government in my own experience. In the more urbanized areas of the east it appears to be different.