https://urgentcomm.com/wp-content/themes/ucm_child/assets/images/logo/footer-logo.png
  • Home
  • News
  • Multimedia
    • Back
    • Multimedia
    • Video
    • Podcasts
    • Galleries
  • Commentary
    • Back
    • Commentary
    • Urgent Matters
    • View From The Top
    • All Things IWCE
    • Legal Matters
  • Resources
    • Back
    • Resources
    • Events
    • Webinars
    • White Papers
    • Reprints & Reuse
  • IWCE
    • Back
    • IWCE
    • Conference
    • Special Events
    • Exhibitor Listings
    • Premier Partners
    • Floor Plan
    • Exhibiting Information
    • Register for IWCE
  • About Us
    • Back
    • About Us
    • Contact Us
    • Advertise
    • Terms of Service
    • Privacy Statement
    • Cookies Policy
  • Related Sites
    • Back
    • American City & County
    • IWCE
    • Light Reading
    • IOT World Today
    • Mission Critical Technologies
    • Microwave/RF
    • T&D World
    • TU-Auto
  • In the field
    • Back
    • In the field
    • Broadband Push-to-X
    • Internet of Things
    • Project 25
    • Public-Safety Broadband/FirstNet
    • Virtual/Augmented Reality
    • Land Mobile Radio
    • Long Term Evolution (LTE)
    • Applications
    • Drones/Robots
    • IoT/Smart X
    • Software
    • Subscriber Devices
    • Video
  • Call Center/Command
    • Back
    • Call Center/Command
    • Artificial Intelligence
    • NG911
    • Alerting Systems
    • Analytics
    • Dispatch/Call-taking
    • Incident Command/Situational Awareness
    • Tracking, Monitoring & Control
  • Network Tech
    • Back
    • Network Tech
    • Interoperability
    • LMR 100
    • LMR 200
    • Backhaul
    • Deployables
    • Power
    • Tower & Site
    • Wireless Networks
    • Coverage/Interference
    • Security
    • System Design
    • System Installation
    • System Operation
    • Test & Measurement
  • Operations
    • Back
    • Operations
    • Critical Infrastructure
    • Enterprise
    • Federal Government/Military
    • Public Safety
    • State & Local Government
    • Training
  • Regulations
    • Back
    • Regulations
    • Narrowbanding
    • T-Band
    • Rebanding
    • TV White Spaces
    • None
    • Funding
    • Policy
    • Regional Coordination
    • Standards
  • Organizations
    • Back
    • Organizations
    • AASHTO
    • APCO
    • DHS
    • DMR Association
    • ETA
    • EWA
    • FCC
    • IWCE
    • NASEMSO
    • NATE
    • NXDN Forum
    • NENA
    • NIST/PSCR
    • NPSTC
    • NTIA/FirstNet
    • P25 TIG
    • TETRA + CCA
    • UTC
Urgent Communications
  • NEWSLETTER
  • Home
  • News
  • Multimedia
    • Back
    • Video
    • Podcasts
    • Galleries
  • Commentary
    • Back
    • All Things IWCE
    • Urgent Matters
    • View From The Top
    • Legal Matters
  • Resources
    • Back
    • Events
    • Webinars
    • White Papers
    • Reprints & Reuse
    • UC eZines
  • IWCE
    • Back
    • Conference
    • Special Events
    • Exhibitor Listings
    • Floor Plan
    • Exhibiting Information
    • Register for IWCE
  • About Us
    • Back
    • About Us
    • Contact Us
    • Advertise
    • Terms of Service
    • Privacy Statement
    • Cookies Policy
  • Related Sites
    • Back
    • American City & County
    • IWCE
    • Light Reading
    • IOT World Today
    • Mission Critical Technologies
    • Microwave/RF
    • T&D World
    • TU-Auto
  • newsletter
  • In the field
    • Back
    • Internet of Things
    • Broadband Push-to-X
    • Project 25
    • Public-Safety Broadband/FirstNet
    • Virtual/Augmented Reality
    • Land Mobile Radio
    • Long Term Evolution (LTE)
    • Applications
    • Drones/Robots
    • IoT/Smart X
    • Software
    • Subscriber Devices
    • Video
  • Call Center/Command
    • Back
    • Artificial Intelligence
    • NG911
    • Alerting Systems
    • Analytics
    • Dispatch/Call-taking
    • Incident Command/Situational Awareness
    • Tracking, Monitoring & Control
  • Network Tech
    • Back
    • Cybersecurity
    • Interoperability
    • LMR 100
    • LMR 200
    • Backhaul
    • Deployables
    • Power
    • Tower & Site
    • Wireless Networks
    • Coverage/Interference
    • Security
    • System Design
    • System Installation
    • System Operation
    • Test & Measurement
  • Operations
    • Back
    • Critical Infrastructure
    • Enterprise
    • Federal Government/Military
    • Public Safety
    • State & Local Government
    • Training
  • Regulations
    • Back
    • Narrowbanding
    • T-Band
    • Rebanding
    • TV White Spaces
    • None
    • Funding
    • Policy
    • Regional Coordination
    • Standards
  • Organizations
    • Back
    • AASHTO
    • APCO
    • DHS
    • DMR Association
    • ETA
    • EWA
    • FCC
    • IWCE
    • NASEMSO
    • NATE
    • NXDN Forum
    • NENA
    • NIST/PSCR
    • NPSTC
    • NTIA/FirstNet
    • P25 TIG
    • TETRA + CCA
    • UTC
acc.com

content


Radio communications improve services on forest lands Communications system designers with radio frequency and funding limitations find ways to deliver the best possible coverage. Often, interagency communications requirements lead to using VHF highband c

Radio communications improve services on forest lands Communications system designers with radio frequency and funding limitations find ways to deliver the best possible coverage. Often, interagency communications requirements lead to using VHF highband c

Workers in the nation's forests carry out duties as commonplace as insect control, as dangerous as fighting fires and as vital as saving lives. Without
  • Written by Urgent Communications Administrator
  • 1st July 1996

Workers in the nation’s forests carry out duties as commonplace as insect control, as dangerous as fighting fires and as vital as saving lives. Without adequate radio communications, their daily tasks would cost more, fighting fires would be more perilous and it might be impossible to respond to emergencies fast enough.

“We have aircraft that fly every day during the winter fire season,” said David Campbell, a forester in Louisiana. “The pilot looks for smoke, and when he finds smoke, he radios the dispatcher in Natchitoches to give the location. The dispatcher calls whatever unit is in the area and sends it to the fire.”

When a fire is burning, the plane circles the fire and tells foresters where the fire has jumped the fire lines. At times, information from the pilot is critical. “On one particularly bad fire, the crew that fought on the fire line didn’t know it, but the fire was crowning trees ahead of them and advancing on them quickly,” Campbell said. “The pilot told them to get out of there, and that warning saved their lives and the equipment for sure.”

Campbell is with the South Natchitoches forestry unit. “The Natchitoches office covers four parishes for District 6 of the state forestry service, including Sabine, Red River, Desoto and Natchitoches,” he said. “We use radios on a daily basis for communications. We have radios on fire plows and tractors. We have hand-held radios to use to communicate with one another while fighting fires.”

The forestry units use radios on a routine basis to report weather conditions and fires to the office in Woodworth. “With these reports,” Campbell explained, “the central office can keep up with all of Louisiana’s fire districts and record the information. For example, all of the parishes report daily rainfall.”

Campbell added that his hand-held radio gives him a sense of security. “If I go into the timber, I carry my hand-held radio,” he said. “If something happened to me, I could call someone. It’s definitely a safety factor.”

Oregon floods Radios commissioned for the forestry service are not used only to fight fires that blaze when rainfall is light and the timber is dry. For example, they were called into use in Columbia County, OR, during 1995’s spring floods that affected 355 square miles of territory. “We used our radio system for coordinating Red Cross efforts,” said Clare Wren, communications manager for the Oregon Department of Forestry. “We helped the Red Cross as it assisted people in getting their homes cleaned up.”

The state’s forestry radio communications network also supports search and rescue efforts in combination with the Air National Guard, U.S. Forest Service and search-and-rescue organizations.

Even though Oregon’s network of 44 repeaters designed for forestry communications supports other activities, its principle purpose is to help with the suppression of fires during the active season from June to September.

Asked what new technologies or features he would like to see offered by radio equipment manufacturers, Wren said, “We try not to let technology rule us. Instead, we want to define how we need to do business 10 years into the future and to foresee what technologies will be necessary.”

Examples of technologies that are expected to be useful include automatic vehicle location (AVL) equipment combined with Global Positioning System (GPS) hardware to provide accurate position information about heavy equipment used during fire suppression. Wren also said that a mobile data capability for mobile-to-mobile and mobile-to-base communications would be helpful.

Cellular and satellite The forestry department is equipping certain outlying units with cellular telephones. “The cellular phones make possible long-distance communication as well as a more secure method of communication compared to open-air radio,” Wren explained. “Also, the department has entered into pilot program with American Mobile Satellite to test 10 mobile units in western Oregon to see what coverage we have in that hilly territory.” The state police are already taking part in the pilot program, which is expected to last 90 to 120 days. After the forestry department joins the program, Oregon’s military department will run a test, too.

“The satellite communications will be press-to-talk,” Wren said. “You can make a group call to talk with everyone within the group. The forestry department will have its own group. To call an individual unit, you access the satellite and call an identification number, and the unit at the other end rings like a telephone.”

Wren described cellular phones and satellite communications as extra tools, but he does not foresee them as replacing existing radio systems. Foresters work in remote areas not likely to be served by cellular systems that are built to reach populated areas and areas with vehicular traffic. Satellite communications may not reach into all locations where a view of the sky is obscured.

At present, the VHF highband carries all of Oregon’s forestry radio communications. “We are on the verge of obtaining UHF,” Wren explained, “but we are not there yet. We have about 44 repeaters statewide on six frequency pairs. The system includes mobiles, portables, base stations and repeaters. We use a portion of the Oregon Department of Transportation’s 6GHz analog microwave systems to control our mountaintop repeaters.”

The repeater system is not linked. Instead, it is divided into 13 districts. Each district has its own frequency pair. A given district has from one to five repeaters, depending on the district’s size and terrain. Although all of a district’s repeaters are on the same frequency, each repeater uses a different subaudible tone control frequency.

“All repeaters in a district hear all of the radios,” Wren said, “but they only key up when the proper tone is selected.”

This configuration can lead to co-channel interference. For example, a radio used on a 6,000-foot mountain can place a strong signal on all repeater input frequencies for 100 miles. The radio might block other signals from the other repeater’s input, but no interference would be heard because the subaudible tone control would keep the other repeater silent.

“We have lived with this type of interference for years,” Wren said. “We are waiting optimistically for FCC to free up new interstitial channels so we can license on 7.5kHz splits in highband. That will solve many of our co-channel interference problems within districts and between districts.”

One relatively new project for the forestry department is centralized dispatching. The dispatching function for as many as five districts is being combined with dispatching for the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management to use one dispatching location.

As is done in Louisiana, the Oregon forestry department uses aircraft, including a Cessna 414 and a Part Navia equipped for aerial photography. Radio equipment on the aircraft can communicate with the U.S. Forest Service and other agencies besides the state forestry department. This capability is useful when the aircraft are used for insect and bear surveys in cooperation with other agencies.

Besides his work with the state of Oregon, Wren is involved with national spectrum allocation matters in his role as president of the Forestry-Conservation Communications Association (FCCA). FCCA has been actively involved in subcommittees of the Public Safety Wireless Advisory Group (PSWAG), a committee with a mandate from Congress to formulate radio spectrum needs for public safety through 2010.

South Dakota When it comes to spectrum allocations, “Everything is in kind of a turmoil,” said Les Childers, a technician with South Dakota State Radio Communications, the agency that oversees radio communications for the state, including forestry communications. Blocks of VHF and UHF land mobile frequencies assigned for specific purposes, such as forestry communications, are subject to refarming, which may mean frequency reassignments for other purposes and with new technical and regulatory requirements. “We don’t know what will happen to those blocks, whether they will be left for government use or auctioned. What we would like to see is that when frequencies are split [creating more channels], frequencies for forestry, local government and police use stay in that group.”

Childers explained that funds for upgrading radio communications systems tend to be more available during a short period following particularly destructive fires. For example, in 1986, lightning ignited a fire–the Galena Park fire–that burned about 18,000 acres in Custer State Park in the Black Hills. A plan had been drawn up during 1985 and 1986 to reconfigure the radio system using 70 channels and including the existing communications resources of local fire, Civil Defense, law enforcement, state forestry and federal forestry agencies. After the fire, funds were made available to acquire equipment for the state forestry department, and the operating plan was developed.

Before the channel plan, Childers said, there were a lot of problems during a fire in the Flint Hills and other burns in the Black Hills. “Communications were rather nonexistent,” he said. “The current system was built in response to that. Rather than reinvent the wheel, we used what was there.”

The plan is based on the original equipment bought for forestry use in that area during the period following the Galena Park fire. The channels are divided into 12-channel banks that fit 48-channel portables. The first bank is dedicated to state agencies, the second to fire line repeaters, the third to local agencies and the fourth to federal agencies.

Although the system uses five repeater sites with another two yet to be installed, Childers said that interference problems are minimal.

Asked what he would like to add to the system, Childers said he would like to have a microwave system dedicated for forestry department use to link repeaters sites together. At present three sites are linked with microwave, and the rest are operating with control stations. “The advantage with microwave is direct linking,” he explained. Control stations cannot always cover such great distances because of terrain shielding, which makes linking with control stations difficult.

The microwave system was nearly achieved. “With one phase of the project, a $950,000 appropriation was supposed to be made for the dedicated microwave system to cover Black Hills,” Childers said. “It didn’t come about. All that was funded was a $3,500 study with maps, and actual construction fell by the wayside. Usually, the situation is that, if there is a fire, everyone wants to address the problems quickly, and then they forget.”

Along with the microwave system, Childers would like to add more mountaintop base stations and repeater sites, and he would interconnect the system with the public switched telephone network for mobile phone calls. The system currently relies on local telephone cooperatives’ equipment and programmable radios with Touch-Tone pads. These radios are dedicated for telephone calls.

Although the communications manager is largely satisfied with the system’s coverage, he would like to have better coverage in some areas. “The Black Hills is mountainous terrain–not good for radio coverage,” Childers said. “Without a high number of repeaters, coverage can be sporadic.”

To improve portable radio coverage, the forestry department uses portable fire line repeaters and 450MHz links. “We situate them where we can link back into the microwave system,” Childers said. “We can have communications right back to the emergency operations center where all the staging is done.”

Successful forestry radio communications takes various forms depending on the expanse of territory to be covered and how many agencies cooperate in providing services to that territory. The safety of life and property, as well as the efficient performance of routine tasks, is improved with the right communications system.

Tags: content

Related


  • Newscan: With government reopen, FCC sets Oct. 21 filing deadline
    Newscan: With government reopen, FCC sets Oct. 21 filing deadline
    Also: Radio hams put passion to work for public-safety communications; why FirstNet needs state CIOs; how the FCC plans to clear the air for more mobile data; xG Technology ships world's first comprehensive cognitive-radio system; Wireless Hall of Fame honors 2013 inductees; Covia Labs wins FIPS 140-2 certification for interoperability software; OtterBox unveils submersible smartphone cases; AvaLAN Wireless wins award; CalAmp, General Dynamics to partner on broadband; and Belkin docking station makes iPad charging, syncing easier.
  • Newscan: FCC certifies Carlson Wireless's white-space radio
    Newscan: FCC certifies Carlson Wireless's white-space radio
    Also: Congress looks to revamp telecom law; Obama to place some restraints on surveillance; IEEE to study spectrum-occupancy sensing for white-spaces broadband; Major Swedish transport operator opts for Sepura TETRA radios; RFMD to partner on $70 million next-generation power grid project; NENA opens registratiuon for "911 Goes to Washington."
  • RCA plans to expand this year's Technical Symposium
    RCA plans to expand this year's Technical Symposium
    Recent presentations, given by both startups and major corporations, have included fractal antennas, LTE, emergency communications, "invisibility cloaks" using RF, disabling IEDs with RF and tropospheric ducting.
  • Newscan: New ordinance may result in jail time for 911 abusers
    Newscan: New ordinance may result in jail time for 911 abusers
    Also: Alcatel-Lucent to cut 10,000 jobs; Supreme Court rules against utilties in pole-attachment case; Verizon's rumored demands may help explain small-cell slowdown; mobile broadband subscriptions near 2 billion worldwide; xG wins FCC certification for access points; and ParkerVision, Qualcomm square off in patent-infringement trial.

Leave a comment Cancel reply

To leave a comment login with your Urgent Comms account:

Log in with your Urgent Comms account

Or alternatively provide your name, email address below:

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related Content

  • Newscan: A look at the critical job of 911 dispatchers
  • CMA conducts 40th conference this week
  • Newscan: New Mexico to launch broadband network for first responders
  • Photo gallery: 2014 Communications Marketing Conference (CMC) in Tucson

Commentary


Public safety needs a better way to triage emergency calls

13th January 2021

In challenging year, working with public safety to move FirstNet forward

30th December 2020

Communications solutions must evolve quickly to meet needs of a changing world

31st October 2020
view all

Events


UC Ezines


IWCE 2019 Wrap Up

13th May 2019
view all

Twitter


UrgentComm

RT @IWCEexpo: 📆 Mark Your Calendars: IWCE will be returning to Las Vegas this September and registration is slated to open in April 📆 Wa…

15th January 2021
UrgentComm

RT @IWCEexpo: ⚡FLASH SALE: Don't miss this exclusive offer! Passes to #IBFVirtual are now 50% off with code TWITTER50. Take advantage of th…

6th November 2020
UrgentComm

Get ready for part 2 of "Ensuring Public Safety Emergency Communications" next week! @PCTEL_inc will explore… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

3rd November 2020
UrgentComm

Over the past few months, we’ve seen the world transform, and it's clear that cities will be affected in the long-t… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

27th October 2020
UrgentComm

Florida state & local agencies subscribing to the Statewide Law Enforcement Radio System (SLERS) will be able to co… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

26th October 2020
UrgentComm

Tune in to @slacorp CEO Josh Lober as he explains how the company has fully integrated its #PTT application to work… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

26th October 2020
UrgentComm

.@SierraWireless announced the commercial availability of the AirLink MG90 platform, which they tout as the first m… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

26th October 2020
UrgentComm

Attorneys for #Hytera and #MotorolaSolutions this week submitted final written arguments, apparently clearing a pat… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

22nd October 2020

Newsletter

Sign up for UrgentComm’s newsletters to receive regular news and information updates about Communications and Technology.

Expert Commentary

Learn from experts about the latest technology in automation, machine-learning, big data and cybersecurity.

Business Media

Find the latest videos and media from the market leaders.

Media Kit and Advertising

Want to reach our digital and print audiences? Learn more here.

DISCOVER MORE FROM INFORMA TECH

  • American City & County
  • IWCE
  • Light Reading
  • IOT World Today
  • Mission Critical Technologies
  • Microwave/RF
  • T&D World
  • TU-Auto

WORKING WITH US

  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Events
  • Careers

FOLLOW Urgent Comms ON SOCIAL

  • Privacy
  • CCPA: “Do Not Sell My Data”
  • Cookies Policy
  • Terms
Copyright © 2021 Informa PLC. Informa PLC is registered in England and Wales with company number 8860726 whose registered and Head office is 5 Howick Place, London, SW1P 1WG.
This website uses cookies, including third party ones, to allow for analysis of how people use our website in order to improve your experience and our services. By continuing to use our website, you agree to the use of such cookies. Click here for more information on our Cookie Policy and Privacy Policy.
X