Yellowstone National Park

Monitoring all of the services at Yellowstone National Park will require loading in several sources (inside and outside of the park) into your scanner. Various Federal, State, County and local agencies may be operating near the park.

Yellowstone National Park is an exclusive federal jurisdiction and state/local agencies do not have any jurisdiction in the park.

Agency Operations

Agencies that may be operating near the park include

• Wyoming, Montana and Idaho Highway Patrols

• West Yellowstone, Montana PD

• Gallatin County Sheriff

• Park County, WY Sheriff

• Park County, MT Sheriff

• Wyoming, Montana and Idaho Game Wardens & Brand Inspectors

• U.S. Forest Service

• Bureau of Land Management

• Wyoming State Forestry

These federal agencies have jurisdiction in the park

• FBI - investigates major crime in the park

• Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) - investigates major structural fires, assists with the regulation of conscessioner's sales of liquor and tobacco.

• U.S. Marshals Service - assists with the transportation and housing of prisoners, court operations and serving federal warrants.

Repeaters

All park repeaters are 20 watt solar powered repeaters and are capable of analog and P25 digital operation. Protection rangers have the ability to transmit encrypted when needed but generally operate in the clear. All park employees are issued radios for safety.

Listings are shown as: Repeater Output/Repeater Input. All repeaters transmit the input tone on the output frequency.

North Net

• North - 166.3250/166.9250 167.9 PL 167 NAC. Most likely located on Mt. Washburn and covers the northern mountains to Mammoth, Canyon Tower, and portions of the north and northeast area of the park.

Lamar Net

• Lamar - 166.3750/166.9750 192.8 PL 192 NAC. Most likely on Mt. Washburn, south of Tower & north of Canyon Village. Covers Lamar and northeast portions of the park.

• Cooke - 166.3750/166.9750 179.9 179 NAC. Location to be determined, but most likely on Henderson Mtn. on the Gallatin National Forest north of Cooke City. Covers the northeast portion of the park.

West Net

• Mt. Holmes - 166.8750/169.4000 146.2 PL 146 NAC. Center of the northwest portion of the park. Covers Mammoth & northwest portions of the park, including the park segment of Highway 191.

• West - 166.8750/169.4000 136.5 PL 136 NAC. Most likely on Purple Mtn., south of Madison Junction. Covers the Norris, Madison Junction, Old Faithful & western portions of the park.

South Net

• Top Notch Pk. -165.5875/164.8000 118.8 PL 118 NAC. West of East Entrance. Covers the East Entrance to Sylvan Pass and the southeastern portions of the park..

• South - 165.5875/164.8000 110.9 PL 110 NAC. Located on Mt. Sheridan, south of Grant Village & north of South Entrance. Covers Grant Village, West Thumb, Lake, Bridge Bay, Fishing Bridge, Thorofare & most of the southern portions of the park.

• Bechler - 165.5875/164.8000 127.3 PL 127 NAC. Located on Survey Peak, southeast of the Bechler Ranger Station south of the southern park boundary in Grand Teton National Park. Covers the Bechler, southwestern, and south boundary portions of the park.

• Mt. Sheridan & Top Notch are normally simulcasting each other via 24/7 patch setup to provide coverage of the southern and southeastern portions of the park

No single repeater covers all of the park or in some cases, a large area. At times some repeaters may become linked for operational needs. For additional information, please see the Yellowstone National Park (ID/MT/WY) article

Other Radio Frequencies Used in the Park

National Park Service

• 172.5000 103.5 PL 103 NAC. Fire Cache Operations

• 167.1500/163.1250 Scene of Action. Radios are programmed for access to five different repeaters, some are already in place and others are probably portable. Portable repeaters use the following CTCSS tones: 206.5, 218.1 and 229.1.

• 168.6500 National Flight Following.

• 168.3500 Common tactical channel to coordinate with Grand Teton & John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Memorial Parkway.

• 168.6125 Common federal government tactical used in most National Parks. CTCSS tone 136.5.

Non-NPS Federal Agency in Park

• 171.3625 Federal Highway Administration.

Commercial or Business Frequency Use

• 463.4500 Mt. Washburn Repeater. Concessioners including Delaware North and the Yellowstone Park Service Stations. The Yellowstone Communications Center "700" can work this frequency.

• 152.4200 Xanterra Corporation. Housekeeping staff use FRS/GMRS.

• 160.2000 Yellowstone Association - conducts tours sells books.

• 464.4500 Wolf & wildlife watchers, mostly so photographers can get shots of wolf & grizzlies.

Park Unit Designators

• 1: Park Superintendent's and headquarters staff including 2 deputy superintendents; chiefs of the divisions of interpretation, maintenance, resource and visitor protection; and administrative functions.

• 2,3,4: Interpretive rangers, research, resource management (foresters, forestry crews, biologists, historians, archaeologists, geologists, air & water quality specialists, wilderness managers) with 2 being the north district, 3 the east district and 4 the south district. Most of these people use a three number designator with the second number representing functions. Some functions have more than ten positions so the numbers may be followed by the persons last name. Example: "462 Smith" is a employee with the last name of Smith who works for 462. The Interpretive Division has different geographical districts than protection and maintenance with those being: West (Grant, Madison, Lake and Old Faithful) and North (Canyon, Mammoth and Norris).

• 5, 6, and 7: Division of Resource and Visitor Protection. Protection includes these functions: law enforcement, structural/wildland fire protection, EMS and search and rescue. The first number of protection ranger's designators are issued according to the area of the general area of the park they work in with 5 for north, 6 for east and 7 for south.

• 9: Maintenance Division. This includes roads, trails and building maintenance; and water/waste water, solid waste, fleet maintenance, horse/mule care, crafts, carpentry, painting, plumbing, electrical; boardwalk and trail maintenance. It is unknown how each person is identified. This division's districts are: North, Tower, Beartooth, Canyon, Lake, Grant and West. Each district has a combination of the trades to handle what exists in each district.

• 700 Series: Base stations. This is derived from the callsign of the park, "KOF700." 700 is the dispatcher. The most often used functional base stations are:
  • 700 Bravo= Backcountry Desk,
  • 700 Charlie= Chief Ranger's Office
  • 700 Echo= Chief of Maintenance Office
  • 700 Fox= Fire Management Desk
  • 700 Lima= Law Enforcement Desk
  • 700 November= Chief of Interpretation Office
  • 700 Sierra= Park Superintendent's Office.
  • 701, 702 are base stations such as ranger stations, entrance stations, and the like. The Park Service is moving away from using these in favor of their names, i.e. "West Entrance" "instead of 702, "Bechler Ranger Station" or just "Bechler" instead of 731. One that may still be in use is "702 Papa," which is the West Yellowstone PD. The stations can sign off using their callsign, e.g. the Bechler Ranger Station would sign off as "KOF731."

These numbers are followed by the alpha designator for the district assigned:

• Alpha - NPS special agents, US Marshals, Court Security, Administration.

• Bravo - Bechler Subdistrict - southwest portion of the West District and western portion of southern boundary.

• Charlie - Canyon District (Norris) - central portion of park.

• Delta - Northeast Subdistrict - eastern portion of the Larmar River District, including Northeast Entrance.

• Echo - East Subdistrict - eastern portion of the Lake District, including East Entrance.

• Fox or Foxtrot - Fishing Bridge based units in the west portion of the Lake District.

• Golf - Grant Subdistrict - northern portion of the Snake River District.

• Hotel - Mammoth District - north central portion of park, including headquarters area & North Entrance.

• Kilo - Lamar River District (Northeast/Tower) - northeast portion of park.

• Lima - Lake District (East) - southeast portion of park.

• Mike - Madison Junction based units in the northern portion of the Old Faithful District

• November - Norris Subdistrict - western portion of the Canyon District.

• Oscar - Old Faithful District - west central portion of park.

• Romeo - Roosevelt based units in the western portion of the Lamar River District.

• Sierra - Snake River District (Grant) - south central portion of park, including South Entrance.

• Tango - Tower Subdistrict - western portion of the Larmar River District.

• Whiskey - West District - western portion of park, including all of the park's western boundary & West Entrance.

The alpha character is followed by two numbers that indicate the position the ranger holds:

• 10 District Ranger

• 11 Deputy District Ranger

• 12 Supervisory Ranger (shift supervisor)

• 13 Backcountry Supervisory Ranger

• 14-20 Permanent field rangers

• 30 Supervisory Seasonal Ranger

• 31-40 Seasonal field rangers

Examples: 5C10 district ranger of the Canyon District, 6O16 permanent field ranger on the Old Faithful District, 7G31 seasonal field ranger on the Grant Subdistrict of the Snake River District.