CZ
Member
Was listening to Yosemite (172.650), and heard about 4 or 5 units refer to themselves as "Bravo" (ie: "Bravo Ten to Yosemite..."). Any idea on what this is?
Yosemite Nat'l Park: "Bravo" Unit ?
- Thread starter CZ
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CZ
Member
Bump!
Sorry, but I have never heard the Bravo designation used before. Yosemite ranger units use numerical prefixs like 300's for Valley units. The only thing that would make sense for Bravo would be back country rangers but they have always been 600 units in the past. Must be something new.
CZ
Member
I've heard others such as the W (Wawona area, I believe) units calling Bravo units. Traffic doesn't seem limited to a particular area though.
Heard stuff like reports of a Bear near campground, or is a Bravo unit going to meet another Ranger at a certain point. Traffic seems to be the normal day to day stuff around the Park regarding campsites, or trails or roads being open, occasional weather comments.
Heard stuff like reports of a Bear near campground, or is a Bravo unit going to meet another Ranger at a certain point. Traffic seems to be the normal day to day stuff around the Park regarding campsites, or trails or roads being open, occasional weather comments.
CZ
Member
bump!
CZ, can you hear anything on 172.625 where you are at? Just outside of Yosemite near Tuolumne and Stanislaus NFs I was picking digital traffic that sounded Ranger related (closing gates, etc).
-Wayne
-Wayne
172.625 out 169.625 in P25
Bureau of Reclamation at New Melones Reservoir - rangers and ops.
Bureau of Reclamation at New Melones Reservoir - rangers and ops.
Yosemite National Park is organized into several ranger districts, those being the Mather, Tuolumne, Valley, Wawona, and El Portal districts, as well as the backcountry unit. The last time I talked with a park ranger in Yosemite he indicated that the number of districts may change in a cost saving effort, so these districts may not be current. There are three types of park rangers: resources, interpretation, and protection. The protection rangers are law enforcement officers.
The call signs for all but the protection rangers, including staff which are not in park ranger posistions were at one time 100 Park Superintendent's staff, 200 Mather District, 300 Valley District, 400 Wawona District, 500 Fire Management, 600 Backcountry Unit, 700 base stations, 800 research, and 900 I cannot figure out. The Mather District had a Tuolumne subdistrict and the Big Oak Flat subdistrict, and the Valley District had an El Portal subdistrict when these numbers were known to be valid, which was in the early 1980's.
The second number indicates the function and in the 100 seriers it is 2 resource management, 3 S & R, 4 Safety Mangement, 5 buildings and grounds, 6 road maintenance, 65+ name Electronics Technicians, and 7 solid waste. On the districts 3 indicates fee collection or interpretation, 5 maintenance, 6 road maintenance, 7 utiilities or electrical maintenance, 8 plumbing maintenance, and 9 forestry (hazard tree crews and similar). In the 600's series 0's were for supervisory personnel and patrol rangers, 1's were permit issuing personnel, 2 was trail crew, 7's were horse and mule packers.
Several years ago they changed all the protection rangers call signs to follow a letter designation first. So Mike is for the Mather District, Tango for the Tuolumne District (which changed from a subdistrict to a full district after I got the number series information shown above), Victor for the Valley District, Whiskey for the Wawona District, Echo for the El Portal District (which was not a subdistrict at the time I got the above information), Bravo for the Backcountry Unit (which at the time I got the information above only had one protection ranger and he was the Backcountry Management Supervisory Ranger but now Backcountry has more protection rangers as I understand), and Sierra I believe is for park headquarters protection rangers such as the Chief Ranger. With the creation of the Tuolumne District, the Mather District absorbed the old Big Oak Flat subdistrict, or much of it. The move to distinquish the protection rangers from the other rangers was done to make sure protection rangers were clearly identified among all the other types of traffic on the three radio nets for the park: park, valley, and fire.
That is the best I have. I used to be able to monitor the park net from my home in Bridgeport, CA from 1981 to 1988 when I confirmed much of the number series information by listening and by talking with park personnel I interfaced with due to working on a bordering National Forest. After that I transferred to another National Forest, moved to my present home, and retired from the USFS. The letter information has been gathered on trips into the park and by talking with some rangers from time to time.
Hope this helps.
The call signs for all but the protection rangers, including staff which are not in park ranger posistions were at one time 100 Park Superintendent's staff, 200 Mather District, 300 Valley District, 400 Wawona District, 500 Fire Management, 600 Backcountry Unit, 700 base stations, 800 research, and 900 I cannot figure out. The Mather District had a Tuolumne subdistrict and the Big Oak Flat subdistrict, and the Valley District had an El Portal subdistrict when these numbers were known to be valid, which was in the early 1980's.
The second number indicates the function and in the 100 seriers it is 2 resource management, 3 S & R, 4 Safety Mangement, 5 buildings and grounds, 6 road maintenance, 65+ name Electronics Technicians, and 7 solid waste. On the districts 3 indicates fee collection or interpretation, 5 maintenance, 6 road maintenance, 7 utiilities or electrical maintenance, 8 plumbing maintenance, and 9 forestry (hazard tree crews and similar). In the 600's series 0's were for supervisory personnel and patrol rangers, 1's were permit issuing personnel, 2 was trail crew, 7's were horse and mule packers.
Several years ago they changed all the protection rangers call signs to follow a letter designation first. So Mike is for the Mather District, Tango for the Tuolumne District (which changed from a subdistrict to a full district after I got the number series information shown above), Victor for the Valley District, Whiskey for the Wawona District, Echo for the El Portal District (which was not a subdistrict at the time I got the above information), Bravo for the Backcountry Unit (which at the time I got the information above only had one protection ranger and he was the Backcountry Management Supervisory Ranger but now Backcountry has more protection rangers as I understand), and Sierra I believe is for park headquarters protection rangers such as the Chief Ranger. With the creation of the Tuolumne District, the Mather District absorbed the old Big Oak Flat subdistrict, or much of it. The move to distinquish the protection rangers from the other rangers was done to make sure protection rangers were clearly identified among all the other types of traffic on the three radio nets for the park: park, valley, and fire.
That is the best I have. I used to be able to monitor the park net from my home in Bridgeport, CA from 1981 to 1988 when I confirmed much of the number series information by listening and by talking with park personnel I interfaced with due to working on a bordering National Forest. After that I transferred to another National Forest, moved to my present home, and retired from the USFS. The letter information has been gathered on trips into the park and by talking with some rangers from time to time.
Hope this helps.
Thanks!digitaljim6 said:
Yosemite Today
Just returned from a few days in the Valley. Very crowded and hot with a little inclement weather. Heard at least two S&R events on 166.300 (Sentinel Dome)and 172.775 (Mount Hoffman). 168.350 is called (common).
I heard Units on these two frequencies with IDs of:
Echo
Victor
Sierra
Tango
Hotel
India
Bravo ?
Also Valley Traffic on:
154.515 (Shuttle Buses)
151.685 (Ahwanee Maint.)
151.515 (Ahwanee Valets)
151.895 (Park Employee Housing)
Unknown Valley Traffic on:
154.540 (Shuttle workers ch #2? )
151.925
151.775
Delaware North Corporation (DNC) runs the Park Concessions.
Just returned from a few days in the Valley. Very crowded and hot with a little inclement weather. Heard at least two S&R events on 166.300 (Sentinel Dome)and 172.775 (Mount Hoffman). 168.350 is called (common).
I heard Units on these two frequencies with IDs of:
Echo
Victor
Sierra
Tango
Hotel
India
Bravo ?
Also Valley Traffic on:
154.515 (Shuttle Buses)
151.685 (Ahwanee Maint.)
151.515 (Ahwanee Valets)
151.895 (Park Employee Housing)
Unknown Valley Traffic on:
154.540 (Shuttle workers ch #2? )
151.925
151.775
Delaware North Corporation (DNC) runs the Park Concessions.
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Hotel and India are identifyers I've not heard before. I may have to change this weekends camping plans and see if we can camp at some place like Yosemite Creek and just sit and listen. My wife and I were planning a camping trip somewhere in the middle of nowhere just to sit and read books. Even though not much in Yosemite accessible by vehicle qualifies as the middle of nowhere by our standards, it would be a good opportunity to catch up on the park's radio system. Sitting under a tree with ham and scanner handhelds going and a good book, sounds good to me!
If I can do this and come up with any explanations I will report back!
If I can do this and come up with any explanations I will report back!
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Tumbleweed
Member
Gene said:
This may be old news by now but I used to work in Yosemite. They didn't have the alpha identifiers at the time but I'm going to make an educated guess:
Victor=Valley Units
Hotel=Hodgden Meadows Units
Echo=El Portal Units
Tango=Tuolumne Meadows Units
Bravo=Big Oak Flat
Sierra=Search & Rescue
India=Investigator
This is a WILD guess.
I had forgotten about this thread until it popped up on my account today. I camped one weekend last summer in Yosemite Creek campground specifically to listen to the parks radio system. I was able to pick up most of the valley simplex traffic from there. Two weeks ago when the Tioga road opened my wife and I made a run over to the valley and my scanners were going full time. From those two trips I've been able to gather the following. Bravo units are very likely to be backcountry units. The north end of the park only has the Tuolumne District and the Mather District so those are Tango and Mike.
The Mather District is headquartered near Hodgdon Meadows but there is not a ranger district of that name. Careful listening has lead me to believe that the Hotel units are horse patrols. I've heard Hotel units in the Tuolumne Meadows area and in the valley and the traffic I heard is consistent with horse patrols.
I've also heard Alpha and Charlie units but I'm not sure what they are. They were active in the valley a couple of weekends ago. In addition to horse patrols many of the ranger's vehicles had bike racks on the back and they were seen out on the bike trails. I don't think these have any special designation but who knows?
There are "Traffic" units and it appears they manage the traffic flow in the valley when it gets overcrowded, responding to hot spots such as Bridalveil falls when people park all over the road when the parking lot fills up. They have one ton pickups with large units on the back that look like a small version of the Emergency Service Units (ESU) from the NYPD. They have lettering similar to the ESU vehicles.
I would like to spend more time in the valley figuring all of this out but am only able to make trips over there Friday through Sunday and the shock of humanity in the Yosemite Valley on weekends is something I'm not able to tolerate very often. Maybe once every 5-10 years. I plan to make a few runs to Olmsted point where I can hear simplex traffic in the valley and all of the Park's repeaters . It only takes me about 45 minutes to get there from home. Maybe if I wear my U.S. Forest Service official retirees hat and run into a ranger I can get better information.
The Mather District is headquartered near Hodgdon Meadows but there is not a ranger district of that name. Careful listening has lead me to believe that the Hotel units are horse patrols. I've heard Hotel units in the Tuolumne Meadows area and in the valley and the traffic I heard is consistent with horse patrols.
I've also heard Alpha and Charlie units but I'm not sure what they are. They were active in the valley a couple of weekends ago. In addition to horse patrols many of the ranger's vehicles had bike racks on the back and they were seen out on the bike trails. I don't think these have any special designation but who knows?
There are "Traffic" units and it appears they manage the traffic flow in the valley when it gets overcrowded, responding to hot spots such as Bridalveil falls when people park all over the road when the parking lot fills up. They have one ton pickups with large units on the back that look like a small version of the Emergency Service Units (ESU) from the NYPD. They have lettering similar to the ESU vehicles.
I would like to spend more time in the valley figuring all of this out but am only able to make trips over there Friday through Sunday and the shock of humanity in the Yosemite Valley on weekends is something I'm not able to tolerate very often. Maybe once every 5-10 years. I plan to make a few runs to Olmsted point where I can hear simplex traffic in the valley and all of the Park's repeaters . It only takes me about 45 minutes to get there from home. Maybe if I wear my U.S. Forest Service official retirees hat and run into a ranger I can get better information.
Tumbleweed
Member
I don't know why I didn't think of this earlier but one of my old Yosemite buddies is a radio tech there. I'll have to send him an e-mail and get the scoop. I worked there from 88 to 97. The first half of my time there was in the auto shop in the valley. Then they built the new NPS warehouse in El Portal and I drove a truck distributing anything and everything throughout the park. Wish I was still doing that. When I worked at the shop I was in pretty good with the rangers. I always gave them top priority. I also spent the summer of '90 in Tuolumne Meadows working on the road crew. That was the year of the A Rock fire. Pretty interesting summer. I've actually hiked up to the Mt Hoffman repeater. What a view from up there. The turtleback repeater can be driven to. Nothing to see though. What forest did you work at? As for me, I'm not working right now but I put in for a truck driver job in Albuquerque with Cibola NF. I've been working for the Army most of the last ten years except for two summers in Death Valley. Speaking of Death Valley, they are advertising for a prescribed fire specialist. (I'm not making this up!) Back on Yosemite, when I was there they didn't have the Alpha call signs. There was just numbers. 100-199 was Hq and park-wide units. 200-299 was Mather & Tuolumne. 300-399 was valley units. 400-499 was Wawona District. 500's was FIRE, 600's was Back Country (Maintenance & Law Enforcement). A call sign ending in '0' was always a supervisor of some sort. The superintendent was '100'. It was pretty easy to figure out who you were talking to. 210 would be a Mather Patrol Supervisor. 300 would be Valley District Ranger. 460 was Wawona Roads foreman. Now I'm missing Yosemite :-( I'll e-mail my buddy at Yosemite and get back with you.
Tumbleweed
Member
Hey Smokey
Here's the scoop:
Victor=Valley Units (And Horse Patrol)
Hotel=JAIL (LOL!)
Echo=El Portal Units
Tango=Tuolumne Meadows Units
Bravo=Back Country
Sierra=Search & Rescue
India=Investigator
Mike=Mather
Whisky=Wawona
Victor=Horse Patrol
Here's the scoop:
Victor=Valley Units (And Horse Patrol)
Hotel=JAIL (LOL!)
Echo=El Portal Units
Tango=Tuolumne Meadows Units
Bravo=Back Country
Sierra=Search & Rescue
India=Investigator
Mike=Mather
Whisky=Wawona
Victor=Horse Patrol
karldotcom
Member
There you go! Someone always has the scoop!
Tumbleweed
Member
Off Topic but I just landed a job at Fort Bliss (El Paso), Texas so I won't be around for awhile. They need me ASAP working for the Army. Guess I'll be leaving Kalifornia 
landonjensen
Member
Good Luck !
Tumbleweed said:Off Topic but I just landed a job at Fort Bliss (El Paso), Texas so I won't be around for awhile. They need me ASAP working for the Army. Guess I'll be leaving Kalifornia
So we are all wondering what Alpha and Charlie units are. Interesting that Hotel is jail personnel. I wonder if they do transports as I've heard them in the field and really thought they were making patrols, so I figured they were on horseback.
Thanks for getting verification on these. It is great to have them verified as I've been trying to figure them out for a few years now.
Good luck down in Texas. As one visitor told me once, "Texas is God's Country", to which I replied "that might be so, but this (pointing at the Minarets, in the Ritter Range of the Sierra Nevada) is where he takes his vacation."
Thanks for getting verification on these. It is great to have them verified as I've been trying to figure them out for a few years now.
Good luck down in Texas. As one visitor told me once, "Texas is God's Country", to which I replied "that might be so, but this (pointing at the Minarets, in the Ritter Range of the Sierra Nevada) is where he takes his vacation."
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