US Forest Service - Eldorado National Forest (CA)

US Forests in California:
Angeles	Inyo	Lassen	Modoc	Sequoia	Six Rivers
Cleveland	Klamath	Los Padres	Plumas	Shasta-Trinity	Stanislaus
Eldorado	Lake Tahoe BMU	Mendocino	San Bernardino	Sierra	Tahoe

Eldorado National Forest (ENF - Forest #03) "Camino" KSB 8-0-1

Established in 1910, the Eldorado National Forest is located on the west slope of the central Sierra Nevada. It ranges in elevation from 1,000 feet in the foothills to more than 10,000 feet above sea level along the Sierra crest. A complicated ownership pattern exists. The parcels of other ownership (private or other Agency land) are mostly isolated and surrounded on all sides by National Forest land. An opposite pattern occurs outside of the main forest boundary where several small scattered pieces of National Forest lands are separated from the main body and surrounded by lands of other ownership. The area within the boundary of the forest is 786,994 acres of which 190,270 acres is private or in other government agency ownership. The remaining 596,724 acres is National Forest land.

The mountainous topography is broken by the steep canyons of the Mokelumne, Cosumnes, American, and Rubicon rivers. Plateaus of generally moderate relief are located between these steep canyons. The principal vegetation types found on the forest are woodland, chaparral, mixed conifer, true fir, and subalpine. A wide variety of hardwoods, brush, grasses, and forbs are mixed in with each of these forest types. Water is a major resource of the Eldorado National Forest. The average acre on the Forest receives about 56 inches of precipitation annually. Average annual runoff is about 29 inches. This is roughly equal to a yield of 2.4 acre-feet of water per acre of land per year; therefore National Forest lands yield an estimated 1,444,000 acre-feet annually An acre foot of water is equivalent to 325,850 gallons of water, the amount consumed in one year by the average household of 4 people.

Old growth totaling 122,000 acres have been identified in the Eldorado National Forest, consisting of: Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii var. menziesii), Ponderosa Pine (Pinus ponderosa), White Fir (Abies concolor), Lodgepole Pine (Pinus contorta) and Red Fir (Abies magnifica).

An interesting fact about the Eldorado concerns it name. The spanish words "El Dorado" translate to "the golden one." Normally el dorado is two words, but the forest has spelled it as one word. The story is told that a clerk accidentally placed a small "d" after El, rather than separating El from Dorado, like the county of a similar name. The Forest Supervisor apparently liked the differentiation and the name "Eldorado" stuck.

The forest is located within 3 - 4 hours driving time from the San Francisco Bay Area, a metropolitan complex of 4.5 million people. Sacramento is located within 1 - 1 1/2 hours driving time from the forest with a population of over 1,000,000 people. The forest is divided into the Amador (District 1), Georgetown (District 3), Pacific (District 5) and Placerville (District 6) and Ranger Districts with the Forest Supervisor's Office in Placerville. The forest is currently (winter 2021-2022) evaluating a proposal to reduce the number of ranger districts to 3, a northern, central and southern districts plan. It appears the Placerville and Amador Ranger Stations would host the central and southern ranger districts. A discussion is available on the Eldorado NF website.

ELDORADO NATIONAL FOREST - RANGER DISTRICT MAP

R5 Eldorado NF RD Map 2014.JPG

ENF Stations
Amador Ranger District #1	Georgetown Ranger District #3	Pacific Ranger District #5
Station 13 - Dew Drop	Station 33 - Georgetown Ranger Station	Station 53 - Pacific Ranger Station
Station 14 - Lumberyard	Station 34 - Quintette	Station 54 - Crystal
Station 15 - Amador Ranger Station

Placerville Ranger District #6
Station 63 - Grizzly
Station 64 - Kyburz or District Ranger Station?
Station 65 - Sly Park

RADIO SYSTEM

The Eldorado National Forest has 3 nets, Forest, Admin and Service. The Eldorado National Forest uses microwave linked remote bases and has some UHF frequencies allocated to it. At one time there were remote bases on Bald Mtn. (Supervisor's Office and Georgetown RD), Big Hill (Supervisor's Office and Pacific RD), Leek Springs (Supervisor's Office and Placerville RD), Argonaut Hill (UHF linked)(Amador RD), Water Tank (Lumberyard Ranger Station) and winter use of Leek Springs by the Amador Ranger District. The current remote base locations are unknown. There are 11 repeater sites with all three nets at each site. The Eldorado National Forest does not use channel numbers to describe the frequencies it uses, rather it describes them by name. Channel plans vary based on the ranger district and function to which they are assigned. The names are shown below under "Description" for each channel.

Direct or simplex communications are no longer conducted on special simplex channels as there are switches on radios to allow for direct communications on any repeater pair channel. Almost all handheld radios in use by the Forest Service are the Bendix-King. These radios have 16 groups and 16 channels per group with only one group can be used at a time. By eliminating the the need for special simplex channels operation of the 5 Forest Service and 3 Cal Fire repeater nets the forest uses, 8 channels are available for other frequencies. On the Eldorado National Forest the repeater's input tone is transmitted on the output frequency.

Other

The unit identifiers follow the function name, district, position number system. Common function names include resources, timber, recreation, wilderness, OHV (Off Highway Vehicle management) lands, special uses, range, wildlife, watershed, soils, fisheries, engineer, engineering, roads, O & M (Operations and Maintenance), ecology and possible additional. Not every forest uses all of these and some ID the same unit with a different name, example some forests call their O & M and roads units "engineering." The Eldorado National Forest Dispatch Center is co-located with Cal Fire's Camino Interagency Dispatch Center. It also dispatches for the U.S. Forest Service Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit. It is a 24 hour operation. The Center's call sign is "Camino."

Channel Plan

**Eldorado National Forest Channel Lineup**
Channel	Tone(s)	Rx	Tx	Alpha Tag	Description
***	1-11	171.5250	162.7500	ENF Forest	Forest Net
***	1-11	172.3250	165.2250	ENF Admin	Admin Net
***	1-11	173.7625	164.8250	ENF Serv	Service Net
***	1,2,3	172.3750	164.9625	TMU Fire	Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit Fire Net (Commonly referred to as "Basin Fire")
***	1,2,3	171.5750	165.4125	TMU Admin	Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit Admin Net (Commonly referred to as "Basin Admin")
***	1-8, 15	151.1900	159.2250	AEU Local	Cal Fire Amador-Eldorado Local Net Tone 5 (145.2) Rx Side
***	1-16	155.9025	159.2275	Eldr Cmd	Eldorado County Command
***	2,4	153.9350	158.8800	Amdr Cmd	Amador County Command (Note: Tone 2 123.0 Tx/Rx Sides)
***		168.2000	168.2000	NIFC T2	NIFC Tac 2 (IA* tactical for the Pacific Ranger District)
***		166.5500	168.5500	R5 T4	R5 Tac 4 (IA* tactical for the Georgetown Ranger District)
***		167.1125	167.1125	R5 T5	R5 Tac 5 (IA* tactical for the Placerville Ranger District)
***		168.2375	168.2375	R5 T6	R5 Tac 6 (IA* tactical for the Amador Ranger District)
***		151.1600	151.1600	CF T2	Cal Fire Tac 2 (Note: Tone 16 - 192.8 Tx/Rx Sides)
***		151.3700	151.3700	CF T8	Cal Fire Tac 8 (Note: Tone 16 - 192.8 Tx/Rx Sides)
***		151.3850	151.3850	CF T9	Cal Fire Tac 9 (Note: Tone 16 - 192.8 Tx/Rx Sides)
***		159.3675	159.3675	CF A/G3	Cal Fire Air to Ground 3 (Note: Tone 16 - 192.8 Tx/Rx Sides)
***		167.5000	167.5000	CA 2 A/G 14 (P)	National Air Ground 14 - CA Zone 2 Primary
***		169.1125	169.1125	CA 2 A/G 59 (S)	National Air Ground 59 - CA Zone 2 Secondary

Note: The Forest, Admin and Service Nets, as well as the two Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit nets, have an output tone of 156.7. Tone 6.

* IA = initial attack phase of incidents, most especially fire suppression.

Revised 10-04-23

Tones

Forest, Admin and Service are available at every repeater site.

ENF Repeaters
Tone	Location	CTCSS Tone
1	Alder Ridge	110.9
2	Leek Springs Hill	123.0
3	Bald Mtn.	131.8
4	Big Hill	136.5
5	Pine Hill	146.2
6	Echo Summit	156.7
7	Mt. Reba	167.9
8	Bunker Hill	103.5
9	Hawkins Peak	100.0
10	Walker Ridge	107.2
11	Sourdough Hill	114.8