Communications/Radios

Radios!

just quick notes to get this page started

there are N Baofang ?model? in the field.

• Wendy
• Michael
• Casey
• Mitchell
• Catherine has a mess of radios I guess
• Ken ( passed along by Casey & Mitchell )
• Greg?
• ( I am sure there are more )

There is a pre-configuration for Butano Canyon. It is installed in our radios by a Mr. Peter C or Casey. It is mostly a set of walkie talkie channels, with bonus channels.

There is a radio test every Saturday Morning 9am IIRC

These sorta work up and down the canyon. We're figuring out the range from the various neighborhoods. Catherine has heard parts of a conversation between Mitchell at the Falls and Ken - Mitchell was using a stock antannea.

other radios

Some folks have FMRS/GRMS radios;regular walkie talkies such as you would get at a sporting goods store. The red boxes in this illustration show which Walkie-Talkie channels overlap with the BaoFang channels.

Yaesu

Brandon and Casey have Yaesu VX-6 radios, which without modification only receive on the defined channels. The next illustration shows channel settings for Butano. BU1-4 are the 'regular' channels for within the canyon. BU UP and BUPD are the Ham radio frequencies for reaching up to the repeater redwoodtree on South Ranch Road.

( there is a modification called the MARS modification which allows them to transmit on other channels. ) Note; if you are programming these to match / copy the Butano channels you have to remember that PeterC set up the Bofang GRMS channels as simplex. infact he chose GRMS channels which are often reserved for GRMS repeaters and defined those for the canyon, for some reason. See the above chart.

Reaching the Outside World

there is a Ham radio uplink to a 'repeater' up on South Ranch Road on the North Ridge.

the two highlighted lines contain the settings for accessing the Repeater. This is from the La Honda groups 'coastal' specifications. Every line with a Name containing a '3' represents community channel assignments from about the Fire Stations in HMB south to the County line.

CMD31 is the Repeater's two way setting. There are definitions for the input (RX) and output (TX) frequencies.

CMD31D is only the repeaters 'output frequency' - or Direct line. This is the frequency we listen to to hear whatever the repeater is repeating. These get used if one simply wants to talk on the channel everyone is listening to - or if you cannot reach the repeater's 'input' frequency.