fuzzhead
Member
After reading another thread on this topic on the Tahoe area, I got to wondering. Do they still use UHF links in the Sierra and Sequoia national forrests? Anybody know what they are?
Sierra NF and Sequoia NF UHF Freqs?
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When in Fresno last month, I did catch the Sierra Wilderness Phone Channel in duplex mode. A couple of firefighters talking. I will have to look the frequency up if you need that, as it's not available at this computer right now. (Stupid network)
I used to know this frequency as well. It was used for the phone at the High Sierra Ranger Station located on the road to Lake Thomas A. Edison and Florence Lake. I was parked there some years back waiting for a buddy of mine and his family. He was substantially overdue. As I was monitoring I heard him talking to personnel at the ranger station about his status due to a vehicle breakdown and requesting that they find me to tell me. I did not greet the employee with "yea, I already know" when he walked up to my car. That would be a stupid scanner trick.
At that time the only electronic site using the frequency was Mt. Givens, which also has repeaters for the forest and emergency nets of the Sierra. It has a good view of much of the John Muir Wilderness and the Sierra NF portion of the Ansel Adams Wilderness.
Radio_Lady
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Is it 411.375 / 415.375? I think there used to be a VHF Wilderness phone on the Sierra on 172.35, but I don't remember the uplink if I ever figured it out.
You are so right, I guess I was listening on a VHF link. Only have one UHF channel programed on the scanner. A quick check of Sequoia does show that they at least had numerous UHF links to the districts within the forest. I am not sure if they still exist with the NFM upgrade there. Sierra NP showed no UHF links in any of my old material.
The Sequoia NF had an extensive microwave network. I heard through the FS radio tech grapevine that they found microwave to be very expensive. They leased some circuits from the state or private industry and had some of their own. At FS owned sites the power bills were quite high. My understanding is that some circuits were replaced with UHF.
The Humboldt-Toiyabe NF has a microwave backbone that it part FS owned and maintained and part State of Nevada owned and maintained. For those repeater sites not linked by microwave UHF links have been installed. Most microwave systems do not link to repeaters on UHF, rather the microwave sites operate as remote bases and just receive and transmit to repeaters like any other base station. Why they chose to use UHF links between the two is unknown to me. I was on that forest when the new system was being built in the late 1980's and helped with the planning of it but never thought to ask why UHF links were being included. My role involved site planning/management and not radio nuts and bolts.
The Humboldt-Toiyabe has no choice but to use microwave. Now that these forests are merged, with the Forest Supervisor's office in Sparks, a comm system covering most of the state is required. There isn't one central dispatcher as the forest is split between 5 dispatch centers. However, I do believe that someone from the Forest Supervisor's office can call someone on any ranger district on the radio. It would be difficult to achieve such using UHF.
My impression of the Sierra NF is that they employ very little or no microwave. They might link Mt. Givens to Musick Mtn., which I believe to be their hub site. However, they don't have remote bases at whatever microwave sites they may have. The Plumas, Sequoia and Angeles use a lot of microwave links and field units can use their radios simplex to contact the dispatcher. It makes it difficult to keep track of things when listening some distance away as you can't hear the ground unit traffic.
The Humboldt-Toiyabe NF has a microwave backbone that it part FS owned and maintained and part State of Nevada owned and maintained. For those repeater sites not linked by microwave UHF links have been installed. Most microwave systems do not link to repeaters on UHF, rather the microwave sites operate as remote bases and just receive and transmit to repeaters like any other base station. Why they chose to use UHF links between the two is unknown to me. I was on that forest when the new system was being built in the late 1980's and helped with the planning of it but never thought to ask why UHF links were being included. My role involved site planning/management and not radio nuts and bolts.
The Humboldt-Toiyabe has no choice but to use microwave. Now that these forests are merged, with the Forest Supervisor's office in Sparks, a comm system covering most of the state is required. There isn't one central dispatcher as the forest is split between 5 dispatch centers. However, I do believe that someone from the Forest Supervisor's office can call someone on any ranger district on the radio. It would be difficult to achieve such using UHF.
My impression of the Sierra NF is that they employ very little or no microwave. They might link Mt. Givens to Musick Mtn., which I believe to be their hub site. However, they don't have remote bases at whatever microwave sites they may have. The Plumas, Sequoia and Angeles use a lot of microwave links and field units can use their radios simplex to contact the dispatcher. It makes it difficult to keep track of things when listening some distance away as you can't hear the ground unit traffic.
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