liftedtacoma4x
Member
Does anyone have the correct Kaibab South NF frequencies? I haven’t heard anything on any of the ones in the RR database.
Kaibab South Frequencies
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KB7MIB
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If they're not in the database, they've probably changed and have not yet been discovered by listeners. You will likely have to discover them yourself, and submit them once you're fairly certain that they're correct, or at least post them here for other monitors to help verify before being submitted.
John
Peoria
John
Peoria
How much radio traffic will the National Forests generate during a Stage IV closure? The employees are still working, but at a different tempo and perhaps different taskings.
cellphone
Silent key.
Output frequency for Kaibab South was confirmed as 172.250 in 2020 with multiple tones. It may have changed since then. There may also be other unknown frequencies in use. Search 163-174 MHz, and submit what you find.
I just heard the Kaibab on 172.250, with a weather report for the day. I am going to monitor for the morning, but I never have got much on their radio. Yes, analog.
Well, Kaibab, Coconino South, and Prescott are very busy with several fires. The Rafael fire, north of Perkinsville. Here in Paulden, we have the Rock butte fires just north of me, and the Gunsights fire, just to my south. All frequencies in the RR database, and analog.
I have a source in Arizona who indicates his National Forest's comm guide and the Regional Comm Guide (Southwest Geographical Area Coordination Center - GACC) shows 172.2500 as the "South Kaibab" net. The "North Kaibab" net is still on 170.5500. The South Canyon (Saddle Mtn. vicinity) electronic site has repeaters for both the north and south nets. I bet this site can be received quite a bit south of Grand Canyon NP given the north rim is about 1,000 feet higher than the south rim.
This source also told me that the Coconino, Kaibab, Prescott and Tonto National Forests have reconfigured their repeater tones to conform with the NIFC standard, so that their Tone 1 (110.9) is the same tone on each forest and the same as the tones in California. Other GACC's have already completed or will be making the changes to the national standard in the next couple of years. The Southwest GACC Guide does not reflect some of these changes for some reason, but his forest comm guide does. The BLM Phoenix District (2 Field Offices) and the Colorado River District (3 Field Offices) have done the same. With a little searching the Apache-Sitgreaves and Coronado National Forests and the BLM Gila District tone list will be found to see if the south end of the state is working on this as well. The AZ DFFM may have had some non-standard tones for some of their repeaters and tac frequencies, but now are all from the standard list.
This reconfiguration of tones following a national standard is long overdue. Many USFS, NPS, USFWS and BLM units were using non NIFC standard tones and labeled them differently so that 103.5 was Tone 1 and then were numbered in an increasing frequency order or in some different manner. This does not match the national standard and NIFC issued a directive 2-3 years ago for all agencies to change their tone configurations. Disparate tones was an issue raised in the Yarnell Hill tragedy and one or two other fire investigations. ICS is supposed to be a standardized system and the tone situation is a part of this. For daily operations this is important as well. As an example, the Southwest GACC has a number of resources temporarily stationed there from other regions, especially from North and South Ops in California. Not having to reprogram all the tones makes things a lot simpler when arriving. Tone protection on the NIFC large incident comm system started about 4-5 years ago and were numbered using this now national standard.
If there is any interest in posting the tone lists from the Arizona fire agencies here, I might find time to post them. I don't know if the procedure there is to announce the name or tone of the repeater when someone initially makes a call. In California the procedure it to say, for example "Inyo, Rec 21 Tone 3." I've heard forests in other regions use the name of the repeater when making a call, for example, "Williams, Patrol 712, on Bill Williams." If the California procedure of just stating the tone number is the practice it would be helpful to know the tones each repeater is accessed with.
I know this is far more information than was asked for. I thought that sharing what my source told me would be useful info.
This source also told me that the Coconino, Kaibab, Prescott and Tonto National Forests have reconfigured their repeater tones to conform with the NIFC standard, so that their Tone 1 (110.9) is the same tone on each forest and the same as the tones in California. Other GACC's have already completed or will be making the changes to the national standard in the next couple of years. The Southwest GACC Guide does not reflect some of these changes for some reason, but his forest comm guide does. The BLM Phoenix District (2 Field Offices) and the Colorado River District (3 Field Offices) have done the same. With a little searching the Apache-Sitgreaves and Coronado National Forests and the BLM Gila District tone list will be found to see if the south end of the state is working on this as well. The AZ DFFM may have had some non-standard tones for some of their repeaters and tac frequencies, but now are all from the standard list.
This reconfiguration of tones following a national standard is long overdue. Many USFS, NPS, USFWS and BLM units were using non NIFC standard tones and labeled them differently so that 103.5 was Tone 1 and then were numbered in an increasing frequency order or in some different manner. This does not match the national standard and NIFC issued a directive 2-3 years ago for all agencies to change their tone configurations. Disparate tones was an issue raised in the Yarnell Hill tragedy and one or two other fire investigations. ICS is supposed to be a standardized system and the tone situation is a part of this. For daily operations this is important as well. As an example, the Southwest GACC has a number of resources temporarily stationed there from other regions, especially from North and South Ops in California. Not having to reprogram all the tones makes things a lot simpler when arriving. Tone protection on the NIFC large incident comm system started about 4-5 years ago and were numbered using this now national standard.
If there is any interest in posting the tone lists from the Arizona fire agencies here, I might find time to post them. I don't know if the procedure there is to announce the name or tone of the repeater when someone initially makes a call. In California the procedure it to say, for example "Inyo, Rec 21 Tone 3." I've heard forests in other regions use the name of the repeater when making a call, for example, "Williams, Patrol 712, on Bill Williams." If the California procedure of just stating the tone number is the practice it would be helpful to know the tones each repeater is accessed with.
I know this is far more information than was asked for. I thought that sharing what my source told me would be useful info.
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In CA on the output Tone 1 103.5 used for BLM & USFS. The input tone usually went from Tone 1 - to the end of list.
In AZ the output can be chosen using 2 different formats.
We also were given access to CHP, never needed it.
Instead of using low band radios, we would force on the closest patrol extender unit. Most communities have a CHP unit parked within a few miles, it was fairly reliable.
In AZ the output can be chosen using 2 different formats.
We also were given access to CHP, never needed it.
Instead of using low band radios, we would force on the closest patrol extender unit. Most communities have a CHP unit parked within a few miles, it was fairly reliable.
Some history of the standardized tone list. For those not interested in going into the weeds on this topic, don't read on.
The national standard tone list came from California and started with both CDF and the feds back when the use of DTMF and burst tones was replaced with CTCSS. This was sometime in the 1980's, perhaps 1984, give or take a year. The State of California adopted this tone plan for all agencies and even Caltrans uses it currently, although the operator does not need to know the tones in most situations. The burst tones were loud and annoying as they sounded every time a mike button was pushed, except when the radio was on a simplex frequency. We had 5 burst tones labeled "Alpha" through "Echo." We would initiate each call announcing the channel and burst tone we were using. Example, "Inyo, 262, on 2 Delta." DTMF tones were only used on a couple of National Forests in California, I think the Plumas was one of them. These were cumbersome as you had to turn repeaters on using a DTMF keypad and when the conversation was over you had to turn it off. If someone forgot and another person keyed up a second repeater you had two repeaters on at the same time. The person who forgot to turn a repeater off was verbally beaten with a stick later on.
When new equipment using CTCSS was installed there were only 8 standard tones. This was thought to be plenty as we only had 5 burst tones when the new CTCSS radios were issued. Most units did not have more than 7 repeaters or could reuse some if some repeaters had topographic shielding. All mobiles had external tone boxes, mounted in the vicinity of the radio. Radios that decoded CTCSS on receive only existed in southern California and this was due to interference from Mexico. Tone 8 was chosen as it was sort of an extra when 7 tones were enough, or more than enough, to cover all a unit's repeaters. Tone 8 was also used for simplex. I remember that all USFS employees in California were given instructions that we had to use Tone 8 to talk on simplex when we went to the 4 southern California national forests. I think CDF added CTCSS decode on receive much later. If a radio was used on a mountain or ridge top it could key up 2 repeaters at the same time. That posed some problems when an incident occured in those locations. It was then that Tones 9-12 were added. Some radios and tone box switches at the time could only handle 9 tones. The standard handheld Kings only had 14 channels. Once the 16 channel Kings became standard Tones 13-16 were added. Every natural resource agency and fire department in the state used the standard tone list from the get go. All of our radios had an external tone box with a dial. The FIRESCOPE program and CA Office of Emergency Services drove the standardization. About 1990 we stopped using the name of the repeater in our transmissions, example, "Mammoth, 262 on Glass (Mtn.) and then began to state "Mammoth, 262, Tone 3." This made mutual aid much easier as visiting units may not have had the Tone/Repeater list for a local area to look up what tone was used for, as in the example, "Glass (Mtn.)." This really helped when responding out of area to CDF fires.
NIFC started to use receive tone decode on its large incident system about 5 years ago. NIFC decided to adopt the standardized tone list from California because a full half of all wildland fire management workload in the U.S. is in California. There is more apparatus and personnel from all agencies and fire departments that work on wildland fires in that state than the sum of the other 49 states. Why adopt a standard that would be different than those agencies/departments had already worked with for 3 decades?
This is follow up to my first post on this thread. My source in Arizona told me that the Coronado and the west Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests are using the national standard tone list now. He could not obtain the A-S east net info due to an error in the GACC frequency guide for this year, but if they changed the west, it would not make sense not to change the east. He has me curious now if New Mexico has made the change.
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