Another consideration was the frequencies already selected by the County EOC and the other towns and cities with operating EOC's. The 146.400 to 146.580 simplex portion of the band is popular with those other agencies, but I found an open spot I thought we could use and chose 146.550 as the primary net frequency, with 147.420 as an alternate.
A few months later the Newton EOC radio was upgraded and a 70 Centimeter band frequency was added, in large part to give us a cross-band repeat frequency - which we have begun to use.
Last evening during their regular Tuesday net, the BARC training topic revisited the Utah 2 Meter band plan, and from that training I realized we will need to make a change to our primary net frequency.
While I had consulted the national band plan and the frequencies in use by other agencies, I did not realize that Utah has a frequency allocation layer on top of the national band plan, limiting the simplex frequency selection to even numbered frequencies at least 20 KHz apart.
So, because 146.550 is less than 20 KHz away from other frequencies in use, and it is not an even numbered frequency in the simplex portion of the band, I propose we abandon it altogether and use 147.420 as our primary net requency, with 446.300 as the alternate. I have reviewed the existing Cache County frequency assignments again and this change will put our net operations well away from any other Cache County agency using the upper simplex portion of the band.
As many of our members use handheld radios, I would like to continue using the split channel for our net meetings. I believe it allows the handheld signals to be heard better by all when we use that split channel. The split channel "listening" frequency wll be 147.420, while transmitting on 446.300.
I realize many of you have recently gone through a reprogramming process to accomodate the split channel we have been using for the net, and I do feel bad to ask again. I feel your pain, as this change will require I reprogram the two radios in the EOC, as well as all of my personal radios, but I believe avoiding potential interference during an actual emergency where many agencies are operating will be worth the effort.
If it is helpful I have prepared a CHIRP image file containing the updated Northwest Cache Valley Net frequencies, the Cache County ICS205 frequencies as well as the VARA and packet gateway frequencies in the valley. You can find that file here.
Also, I want to thank each of you for participating! Whether it is through reading the training posts on the blog, or by joining us during the net on a radio, our goal is to help amateur operators in this corner of the county to be better prepared if we need to use our radios in an emergency.
If I can help with programming I would be happy to do so. If you have questions or concerns, please reach out via 435-757-3330 or by email to greg.fabricius@gmail.com.