FEMA Frequencies In Action

 

Recent events in the South Florida area prompted requests from readers for information on the frequencies used by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

 

At 1:23 AM on June 24, 2021, a large section of the Champlain Towers South condominium building in Surfside, Florida, collapsed. Nearly 100 people lost their lives in the collapse. The response to the building collapse was massive, with not only Miami city agencies and Florida state agencies responding, but quite a few federal agencies sent teams of personal and equipment in. On June 25, President Biden signed an Emergency Declaration authorizing federal assistance to local and state resources.  

FEMA can show up in nearly any federal frequency band, but their primary frequencies of choice these days is in the 400 MHz federal band. All communications are likely P25 digital and encrypted. FEMA has also been observed handing out Motorola DTR710 900 MHz spread spectrum frequency hopping radios in some situations. In addition to the FEMA channels, be sure and keep a watch on the VHF and UHF interoperability frequencies found in the DHS National Interoperability Field Operations Guide, or NIFOG. Radios deployed at disaster sites will have all the NIFOG channels available for use.

 

Here is a listing of known FEMA radio frequencies that were probably in use in South Florida and can be used in any disaster response. The P-25 digital channels will often be used with a Network Access Code (NAC) of N421, but other NACs have been observed in some situations. All of these can be used as repeater pairs (inputs are usually +9 MHz in the UHF band), or any frequency can be simplex:

 

406.2625           N421     FEMA 01/02

406.4500

406.4625

406.6500

406.6750

406.7000

406.7250

406.7500

406.8625                         National Disaster Medical System (NDMS)

407.0625           N421     FEMA 03/04

407.1250                         NDMS

407.2625

407.4500           N421     FEMA 11/12

407.4625

407.5250

407.6625           N421     FEMA 05/06

407.8000
407.8500

407.9000

407.9250

408.0625

408.2625

408.8625           N421     FEMA Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) 01

409.0000           N447     FEMA NDMS

409.0500           N447     FEMA NDMS

409.0625           N421     FEMA 07/08

409.0750                         NDMS

409.1500

409.2000

409.2625                         USAR

409.3375

409.4625           N421     FEMA 11

409.6625                         USAR

409.7250

409.8625           N421     FEMA 05

410.2625                         USAR

410.3375           N447     FEMA NDMS

410.4625           N421     FEMA 09/10

410.6625                         FEMA Urban Search and Rescue (USAR)

410.8625           N421     FEMA 14

412.4375

412.8250

412.8375

412.8500

412.8625

412.8750

412.8875

412.9000

412.9125

414.9125

414.9375

414.9500

414.9625

415.2625

415.4625

415.6500

415.6750

415.7000

415.7250

415.7500

415.8625

416.0625

416.2625

416.4500           N421     FEMA INPUT

416.4625

416.5250

416.6625

416.8000

416.8500

416.9000

416.9250

417.0625

417.2625

417.2875

417.8625

418.0625           N421     FEMA 08 INPUT

418.0750

418.1500

418.2000

418.2625

418.3375

418.4625           N421     FEMA 11 INPUT

418.6625

418.7250

418.8625           N421     FEMA 05 INPUT

419.2625

419.4625           N421     FEMA 02 INPUT

419.6625           N421

419.8625           N421     FEMA 14 INPUT

 

I will continue to update my FEMA frequency listings on the Fed Files Blog page, which can be found here: http://mt-fedfiles.blogspot.com/p/fema-frequencies.html

Government Master File

For those who may have missed the discussions on Radio Reference or in the pages of The Spectrum Monitor magazine, there has been a redacted version of the Government Master File of federal radio frequencies made available on line. 

 

The web site Government Attic obtained the unclassified portion of the GMF and posted it on their site. The first page of the PDF file indicate that Government Attic requested the GMF copy from the Department of Commerce through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. The request was submitted on May 19 and was released on June 25, 2021. 

 

 Here is a link to the file if you wish to download it for yourself:

https://www.governmentattic.org/41docs/NTIAgovtMasterFile_2021.pdf

 

The released PDF file is 82 megabytes large and contains over 15,500 pages of text information from the GMF, although some have noticed that there are some blank and duplicate pages in this file. It is important to note that this is only a portion of the entire Government Master File, a portion that had been unclassified for release. 

 

Those who are in the know say that this release is only about 20 percent of the entire file. The entire GMF is quite large and is only available to persons or organizations who hold a government security clearance. Sensitive frequencies used by agencies of the Justice Department, Homeland Security, Department of State, etc., are all redacted from this document.

 

Despite being heavily edited, there are some interesting federal frequencies listed for various offices and agencies that you may not have known about before, so definitely check it out if you have time to look through the file. 

Since this version of the GMF extract is a PDF file, your PDF reader program should have a search function built in. I have found that to find a specific frequency, you can search for “M162.5500”, with M standing for Megahertz and K for kilohertz. You can search for city names or federal facility names or locations.