My goal is to create a list of useful frequencies in the Vancouver area. This is by no means a comprehensive list. On the contrary, it has been carefully vetted to exclude any repeaters and frequencies that are not in service or are not in common use. Many of the Vancouver-area repeaters listed on sites like Repeaterbook are useless, either because they're not functional or because nobody uses them. I'm trying to avoid that with this list. There are a few quiet repeaters on the list but only if they serve a strategic purpose, such as covering an area that other, busier repeaters don't cover as well, or operating in a band that isn't otherwise represented.
The basic structure of the Vancouver Area Frequency List is simple. There's a tab called Complete List which lists all the frequencies, and then there are a bunch of other radio-service tabs that break the list down into individual radio services. The basic idea is that the Complete List will be used by those who might want to program their radio (either in whole or in part) using one of our downloads (Chirp, RT Systems, etc), and the other radio service tabs will be used by people who simply want to refer to the list for information, possibly using some of that information to program their radios their own way. The other radio service tabs get their information from the Complete List. There are no frequencies on the other radio-service tabs that aren't listed in the Complete List.
The Downloads tab is where you will find the files needed to program your radio/scanner, and a PDF if you'd like to keep a copy of the list offline (or even, God forbid, print it).
There are three Chirp files and three RT Systems files, each of the three having a different channel-name length. Many radios, even good ones, only have 6-character alpha tags, and some have 12-character tags. I'm trying to accommodate those.
The Chirp files do not accommodate memory banks because my experience has been that the memory-bank feature in Chirp doesn't work reliably. The RT Systems files do accommodate memory banks and they'll also work if you can't or don't want to use that feature.
Please, follow the instructions. Things rarely go well with tech if you ignore instructions.
The generic file is there if you are using oddball software, or writing your own import. Obviously, you'll need to map my fields to yours.
Generally speaking, I hate duplication of data, but I've done that for the emergency channels. They're not actually duplicated at the data level (I just linked them) but they appear twice in the list. I've done this for two reasons:
Many radios have just 100 or so memory slots so they will never be able to scan the emergency channels further down in the Complete List.
Even those whose radios have a thousand or more memory slots can benefit from knowing that memories 90-100 are emergency channels from various services. You can just type 90 into your radio and cycle through them.
I know it looks absurd to see BC railway channels in a different memory bank from general railway channels. There are 107 railway channels in North America and they're the same in BC as they are everywhere else. The fact is, however, that almost all bank-capable radios (even good ones from Icom, Yaesu, and Kenwood) only allow 100 frequencies per bank. Something had to give so I broke off the BC channels into their own bank, which brought the railway bank down to a size that most radios can work with. The end result is clumsy, but it has the advantage of letting you scan the Railway BC bank only, which is what most people in the Lower Mainland want to hear, anyway.
The same is true for the Wildfire channels, which have been similarly broken into two banks.
Well, it's more of a to-do list than a roadmap but here's what I hope to do when time permits.
Add some US repeaters.
Add some digital repeaters and simplex frequencies.
Many of the notes on the amateur frequencies refer to the Provincial Emergency Plan for Amateur Radio, an effort taken in the 2000s by the Provincial Emergency Radio Communications Service to coordinate spectrum usage in emergencies. Thanks to John Schouten VE7TI for his help providing that information.
I know this list doesn't look great on phones. I just see no way to make a wide, detailed spreadsheet like this look good on a phone.
Please don't hesitate to let me know about any errors or omissions I've made. I'm grateful for any corrections. You can reach me here.
Best,
Reg
VA7ZEB