So Many Choices, but Only 16 Channels

In the last year, I’ve been volunteering for amateur radio events whenever possible. I worked the Rotary Auction last year, and the Chilly Hilly this past weekend. For both events, I programmed new frequencies into my radio on the night before the event.

Here’s what I have decided to cover so far. From the Kitsap County Emergency Communications Plan, each region of Kitsap County has a 2-meter and 70-centimeter frequency (in MHz):

• South Kitsap Simplex (147.46 & 445.850)
• Bremerton Simplex (147.48 & 445.875)
• Central Kitsap (147.50 & 445.900)
• North Kitsap (147.52 MHz & 445.925)
• City of Bainbridge Island (147.54 & 445.950)
• Medical Net (147.56  & 445.975)
• County Wide (445.825)

Furthermore, there are repeaters that we use for emergencies. Those are the same repeaters used for events.

• The BARC repeater (444.475+ PL=103.5)
• The Kitsap County repeater in Silverdale (145.43- PL=179.9)

And then, there are a couple of customized channels:

• A buck mountain repeater  (440.950+ PL=110.9)
• Simplex with a tone (147.54, PL=100)

With the Baofeng UV-5R, you have 127 channels. This will allow you to put all of these frequencies into the radio. However, with the Baofeng 888s, you only get 1 band (70-centimeter) and 16 channels. This means that you have to choose what channels you are going to keep.

For my radio, on Saturday, I did this programming:

This covers the two repeaters that we were using for the Chilly Hilly, The North America simplex call for 70-centimeters, simplex channels from the communications plan, and the BARC simplex channel with tone squelch. Lastly, I added a channel with tone encode but not decode just in case someone doesn’t have their radio set up to encode.

This is the 888s setup that I’ll start with when I work my next event.