[TheList] NZ Forestry Radio Frequencies

Fri Mar 3 12:43:31 AEDT 2023

Hey mate,

Forestry channels are kinda all over the place with what forest uses 
what, and what forest requires what.  It's not uncommon for one area to 
be on one channel, and another area to be on a seperate one, within one 
forest.   It should basically all be analog VHF around 150 - 155ish, 
with the odd one using commercial freqs in the EE/EN band.  There's no 
real list,  I often found radio dealers not doing a good enough job when 
programming so when they changed to narrowband this was an ideal time 
for everyone to clean up their acts, but noone really did.  I know 
everything I put out was above board.

The issue mainly being some forest managers require selcall on certain 
channels, others don't - even if it's the same frequency used in 
different areas.  Company A might have say channel 13 (a fairly common 
channel) in their radio, with no selcall enabled which is fine for 
Forest A, but not for Forest B.... Company A does work in Forest B and 
doesn't understand why the forestry managers get upset, to them they 
have the channel and there shouldn't be an issue.  Selcall was one of 
the ways to ensure that everyone has the right channels in the radio,  
just cos you have say, channel 13, you might also be required to have 
several other channels in case of a fire, or entering a loading zone and 
also that you're meant to be in the forest in the first place... A lot 
of 4WDers, for example, had forestry channels programmed into radios 
that were never allowed in the forest in the first place.

The best thing, to confirm, would be to get hold of the forestry manager 
for the forests you're going into, they can advise what channels they 
use, even if you have no intentions to transmitting at least you could 
listen out for calls when you're in the area. Otherwise close call might 
be your friend while you build up a database.   What they call channel 
57, may be called something entirely different... I've just gone through 
the list of forestry stuff I have done in the past, and I don't see a 57 
mentioned, but it might be called something else.

Cheers,

Richard.

On 3/03/2023 2:17 pm, Chris H - Radiowiki wrote:
> Driving a bit in forestry roads for my job, and more so after the 
> cyclone - I was wondering if anyone has a list of Radio Frequencies 
> they use..
>
> I was in one yesterday (No logging operations so no requirement to 
> carry a radio when we travel) that said use NZR or RNZ Channel 57 for 
> traffic positions.
>
> Cant find anything listed anywhere, and the god awful RSM site is 
> almost next to useless at the moment for searching..
>
>
> Also - this list seemed awfully quiet during the cyclone, is it still 
> active??
>
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