Trying to understand USFS comms

[Kirk]

I also show a repeater on Rincon Peak (Carpenteria) on Tone 14 (151.4). Can anyone confirm?

Good info from all, thanks! I think I had most of the pieces figured out, but it's nice to get confirmation from those in the know.

 

[MCIAD]

Just talked to LPF dispatch.

No repeater on Rincon.

And they are on the Santa Maria Airport. There are plans to move to Vandenberg - someday. The dispatcher I talked to did not know when that would take place - there is no target date that he was aware of.

 

[Kirk]

Just talked to LPF dispatch.

No repeater on Rincon.

And they are on the Santa Maria Airport. There are plans to move to Vandenberg - someday. The dispatcher I talked to did not know when that would take place - there is no target date that he was aware of.

Thanks for the info. I shall have to poke around a bit at SMX next time I'm down that way to see if I can find them.

Doesn't it seem weird that the federal government would be so transient? I know they have an office in Santa Maria, does it really make sense to lease space out and move equipment every few years?

My tax dollars at work.

 

[SCPD]

Thanks for the info. I shall have to poke around a bit at SMX next time I'm down that way to see if I can find them.

Doesn't it seem weird that the federal government would be so transient? I know they have an office in Santa Maria, does it really make sense to lease space out and move equipment every few years?

My tax dollars at work.

There can be all sorts of reasons this is being done this way. Perhaps the co-location with CDF for 24 hour operation actually cost the Forest Service more than the lease at Santa Maria Airport. Another reason could be that a lease is not involved. On the Inyo there was a small building which was owned by the National Weather Service and due to budget cuts in that agency it was vacant. The Forest Service was allowed to occupy the building without charge because they were able to take over some of the weather observation duites for the NWS. Perhaps they are moving to Vandenberg but can't presently move in because they don't have the funding yet to modify a building at the Air Force Base. Then again the Forest Service may have had some type of building at the Airport already. There may be technical reasons that they can't have the dispatch center in the Forest Supervisors office in Goleta. By the way that facility is leased. The Forest Service would like to own all of its offices, however, Congress rarely appropriates money for the agencies to build their own office space even though in the long run it would save a great deal of money over leasing. It is like a person who lives in an apartment but doesn't have the capital to purchase a home, they don't have the choice but to spend money on rent and then have nothing to show for it over the long run. The Angeles NF pulled out of an expensive lease about 25 years ago and then purchased a bunch of modulars and placed them on USFS owned property in Arcadia where their fire warehouse was. Often times the USFS owns pieces of property which are not part of a National Forest because they are outside the boundary of the Forest but owned by the government for administrative purposes. Examples are warehouses, horse patures, employee housing, and Ranger Stations. If the FS is currently not using the faciltiy because they don't have the money to keep the facility up, there can be pressure from Congressmen and county boards of supervisors to have the government dispose of the land, often so some developer can make big bucks, in the "public interest of course". Then when the FS gets into a bind somewhere and needs to make a move similar to the Angeles move out of leased space in Pasadena, they don't have the option anymore.

I found over my career that things were most often not as they appeared. We would all hear about a move like the LP made with their dispatch center and wonder why. Then someone would talk to someone on the LP on a fire or some other meeting, or may have gone there on a temporary assignment and hear the details. We would then find out and it would make perfect sense to us. Of course, if a politician had gotten involved, especially one with a large ego who was all talk, the move may have been something that actually hurt the agency. By the way, when politicians would help us resolve problems it was likely people would never hear about it because as Al Pacino said in the movie "The Recruit", "you will never hear anything when the government does anything right, only when it makes a mistake".

After 26 years in the government I learned over and over that what you hear and what is actually the true situation are very often completely different.