LPNF Forest Net Repeater Input

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ko6jw_2

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OK, so nobody knows anything and what you do know is wrong. Statements like "he needs to check current information" are not helpful. He does know all the the frequencies you refer to and he has a more up to date list than the one you posted. Its just that the fire camp frequencies are portable repeaters. They would not normally be used except at a major fire and maybe not then. They might use other NIFC frequencies. The thing about these lists is that they don't always mean that they will be used - just that they can be used. Sometimes they're just plain wrong.

Whether or not dual inputs are a good idea is debatable. Maybe someone pushed the wrong button on the console.

By the way, I do have actual public safety radio experience and so does my source.

I am just reporting observations. If they don't make sense then they don't make sense.
 

norcalscan

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It doesn't. Period. There are too many crazy ideas in here, all from people with no actual public safety system experience. (Listening doesn't count).

"Dual inputs" would do nothing to solve phase noise on the output. It sounds like something a messy ham system would try.

Keep it simple. It's the government.

Omigosh thank you - I'm pulling my hair out wondering what problem would be solved with multiple inputs in this situation, and different than the tried and true UHF links across all forests. I agree about this being an odd side patch from one net to the other, either by dispatch console, or a radio tech temporarily tieing a remote base/different system into the same UHF audio link (which would explain the audio some are hearing,) for whatever reason, which brings me back to one of my original replies in this thread...

But you'll find the closer your ears think you get to a truth, the more likely you'll be bamboozled by a wizard behind the curtain, a patch on a dispatch console, fancy remote bases, simulcasted audio paths, temporary audio linking by the likes of ACU-1000's etc. It's all part of the fun of the hobby.
 

Paysonscanner

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OK, so nobody knows anything and what you do know is wrong. Statements like "he needs to check current information" are not helpful. He does know all the the frequencies you refer to and he has a more up to date list than the one you posted. Its just that the fire camp frequencies are portable repeaters. They would not normally be used except at a major fire and maybe not then. They might use other NIFC frequencies. The thing about these lists is that they don't always mean that they will be used - just that they can be used. Sometimes they're just plain wrong.

Whether or not dual inputs are a good idea is debatable. Maybe someone pushed the wrong button on the console.

By the way, I do have actual public safety radio experience and so does my source.

I am just reporting observations. If they don't make sense then they don't make sense.

My late Hubby never went to a fire camp where the Service Net is put on portable repeaters. If Service Net repeaters don't cover a particular incident command post it is possible for them to install a portable remote base station that would link the ICP with UHF frequencies and have a Service Net input as the VHF output of the base. We never observed this happening, but I can see that as a possibility. A portable Service Net repeater is not something that ground or air resources would use. Service Net is used for dispatcher to ICP communications, not field units to ICP comms. Sometimes a forest will use service net as an alternative, they might put command for a fire on it, they might change an entire ranger district to Service Net to keep folks off the other nets, that are busy with fire traffic. This is why it is good for them to have a good coverage Service Net system in place. Where Hubby and I lived we could hear 4 national forests and we listened to how they operated. Where did you get the information or idea that Service Net is all done with portable repeaters? I just looked through the R5 frequency guide for 2020 and more than half the forests list a service net that is in their common group forest or district groups, all with permanently installed repeaters. The remaining forests might have Service Net in other groups that have large incident frequencies in them. Forests with district and management area nets don't nave a Service Net, this is the case on the Shasta-Trinity and Klamath.. The term "fire camp" is not actually current terminology, it is a throwback from the days prior to ICS. It has been replaced by "Incident Command Post," ICP. In camp communications are conducted by simplex on UHF frequencies assigned to NIFC. A lot of firefighters don't know this as they are not carrying UHF radios and don't know the entire range of what the NIFC system does. There are 5 camp frequencies listed for the NIFC system. There are 7 logistics, temporary repeater frequency pairs. These can be used if simplex doesn't cover the camp, or if there is a receiving/distribution center some distance away from the ICP. There are 8 UHF frequencies for linking aviation frequencies, usually a VHF-AM remote base. There are 7 frequency pairs for linking command net, VHF repeaters. I'm taking this all out of the NIFC system user's guide.

My dear late husband carried a hand held scanner on all the wildland fires he went to when our local department sent Type 1 engines to fires. He had all the NIFC UHF frequencies programmed, figured out how the NIFC system worked and how forests used their systems when a national management team was not involved, the so called "Type 3 incidents" that have local people on the management team. We sometimes parked near a fire and he listened to all of the frequencies being used on the fire, no matter how obscure they seemed.
 

Paysonscanner

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I think Hubby told me the UHF handhelds were marked with a different color, so that someone didn't confuse fire ops with logistics. I faintly remember him saying the batteries on the UHF radios were painted green, but that was so long ago I might not be correct on this. The Bendix-Kings have batteries that are the same color as the radio when it is rechargeable battery and an orange case for using alkaline AA batteries, 9 of them. So NIFC came up with some way of making the UHF's look different. The only time we saw UHF handhelds locally was when a dispatcher would take one home in order to be able to get on the forest's system from there via the UHF links that dispatch used. Hubby said someone would forward the 24 hour dispatch number to their home phone and then work an incident by the seat of the pants at home, then in the car on the way to dispatch. Cal Fire didn't worry about such things, their ECC's are all 24/7/365.
 
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Well after a few weeks of monitoring the inputs I got nothing up here, but the CALFIRE got tone 11 up and running in LPF Arroyo Seco sounds lound and clear!
 

KK6ZTE

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Well after a few weeks of monitoring the inputs I got nothing up here, but the CALFIRE got tone 11 up and running in LPF Arroyo Seco sounds lound and clear!

Confirming on BEU East?

Also, 164.825 is definitely a transmitter on Santa Ynez Peak, I haven't bothered to isolate a PL tone and see which mountaintop it's aiming at. LPF Service Net is in the Monterey Ranger District East comm plan, so maybe ScannerDude244 may be able to hear the output.
 
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Confirming on BEU East?

Also, 164.825 is definitely a transmitter on Santa Ynez Peak, I haven't bothered to isolate a PL tone and see which mountaintop it's aiming at. LPF Service Net is in the Monterey Ranger District East comm plan, so maybe ScannerDude244 may be able to hear the output.

Yup BEU East and I got nothing on 164.825
 

KK6ZTE

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Yup BEU East and I got nothing on 164.825

You wouldn't, but you might hear 171.500 which would be the output of the LPF Service Net (and a couple other across the state) as they are multicasting traffic onto the Service Net input which is often far clearer than Forest Net (at least in northern Santa Barbara and southern SLO County)
 

Paysonscanner

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Confirming on BEU East?

Also, 164.825 is definitely a transmitter on Santa Ynez Peak, I haven't bothered to isolate a PL tone and see which mountaintop it's aiming at. LPF Service Net is in the Monterey Ranger District East comm plan, so maybe ScannerDude244 may be able to hear the output.

Of course 164.8250 is being transmitted from Santa Ynez Peak, it is the remote base for the forest, including dispatch in Santa Maria. It is transmitting 164.8250 along with a repeater access code to transmit on repeaters all over the forest. There is no way for dispatch to reply on a repeater unless, like the mobile units, they transmit on the input frequency using the tone listed for that repeater. There is no other repeater linking system on the Los Padres. The 400 MHz frequencies are used to link the Supervisor's Office and dispatch to the remote base, in effect putting their base station on top of Santa Ynez. They control what this base station does. No one else can as mobiles and handhelds don't cover the 400 MHz band.
 
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Paysonscanner

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Of course 164.825 is being transmitted from Santa Ynez Peak, it is the remote base for the forest, including dispatch in Santa Maria. It is transmitting 164.8250 along with a repeater access code to transmit on repeaters all over the forest. There is no way for dispatch to reply on a repeater unless, like the mobile units, they transmit on the input frequency using the tone listed for that repeater. There is no other repeater linking system on the Los Padres. The 400 MHz frequencies are used to link the Supervisor's Office and dispatch to the remote base, in effect putting their base station on top of Santa Ynez. They control what this base station does. No one else can as mobiles and handhelds don't cover the 400 MHz band.

I forgot to say that the remote base receives the repeater outputs and then those are passed down the 400 MHz links to dispatch and the SO. There is a downlink and uplink 400 MHz frequency for each net. So you will be able to hear every input frequency being transmitted from Santa Ynez. The remote base is also capable of simplex operation. If a mobile/handheld switches to the direct or simplex channel for each net, uses Tone 8. they can communicate simplex with dispatch and the SO. They can only do so in locations on the Santa Barbara Ranger District that are in the coverage area of the remote base on top of that peak. This gives them the opportunity to communicate with those two base station locations without transmitting to a repeater which is more widely heard. You can't hear the mobile unit's traffic unless you are pretty close to it. Every once in a while I would drag late Hubby to Solvang. He would sit outside stores on benches figuring out the Los Padres radio system. He also was able to write to the forest's radio tech via another USFS employee. Then, we visited dispatch once, when it was in Goleta, and the radio tech gave us quite the tour. We figured out the system then and he took good notes of his contacts.
 

Paysonscanner

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If you are in the 400 MHz reception range of Santa Ynez Peak and can program each downlink freq. you would be able to hear just what the remote base is hearing. So you would hear mobile traffic using all the repeaters on, for example, the Monterey Ranger District. Imagine being in Santa Barbara walking down a street with a handheld and receiving the radio traffic of a unit north of Big Sur, but that is what is possible. Where Hubby and I lived, we didn't program the repeater output freqs. we just listened to the downlink freq for the nearest forest, we heard everything, including wilderness rangers located in valleys near the Sierra Crest. Why not try to hear what the dispatch center is hearing? You don't miss anything. Late Hubby installed a Yagi antenna on the roof with rotary control. He would rotate to listen to one forest's links and then marked on the dial the best aim to another forest's downlinks, including downlinks for Air Guard and the North Ops and South Ops dispatch center to dispatch center nets that used to exist. He taught me how to use this setup and when fires broke, we had a bunch of neighbors in our house listening. They thought Hubby was a genius figuring all of this out, but it's not complicated at all.
 
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You wouldn't, but you might hear 171.500 which would be the output of the LPF Service Net (and a couple other across the state) as they are multicasting traffic onto the Service Net input which is often far clearer than Forest Net (at least in northern Santa Barbara and southern SLO County)

I can pick up Admin and forest net just not the inputs
 

iscanvnc2

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Forest net was 170.550 before switching over to 170.4625. Service net is 171.550.

Before the forest switch, the two nets were exactly 1.0000 MHz apart.
 

vince48

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If you are in the 400 MHz reception range of Santa Ynez Peak and can program each downlink freq. you would be able to hear just what the remote base is hearing. So you would hear mobile traffic using all the repeaters on, for example, the Monterey Ranger District. Imagine being in Santa Barbara walking down a street with a handheld and receiving the radio traffic of a unit north of Big Sur, but that is what is possible. Where Hubby and I lived, we didn't program the repeater output freqs. we just listened to the downlink freq for the nearest forest, we heard everything, including wilderness rangers located in valleys near the Sierra Crest. Why not try to hear what the dispatch center is hearing? You don't miss anything. Late Hubby installed a Yagi antenna on the roof with rotary control. He would rotate to listen to one forest's links and then marked on the dial the best aim to another forest's downlinks, including downlinks for Air Guard and the North Ops and South Ops dispatch center to dispatch center nets that used to exist. He taught me how to use this setup and when fires broke, we had a bunch of neighbors in our house listening. They thought Hubby was a genius figuring all of this out, but it's not complicated at all.
Greetings,
is there known downlink and uplink in the 400 MHz list available?
 
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