Radio Channels

Imagine the programming in your radio is a spreadsheet:

• Turning the middle knob on the top of the radio moves you left or right between columns. This changes the channel.

• Press the buttons above and below the PTT (the big button on the side) moves you up and down between rows. This changes the zone.

We have three main zones that you should be familiar with and a host of other zones below them that are there to fulfil the UKSAR requirements. The main zones are:

• Default Zone (the one that your radio starts on) - Contains a single roaming group of LAMRT's duplex (repeater) channels that you can move between to select a specific channel.

• Heli/Failback Zone - Contains LAMRT's most used simplex (point to point) channels.

• Lakes Zone - It contains all the duplex (repeater) roaming groups and simplex (point to point) channels used by Lakes teams.

All the other zones are there because we're required to have every UKSAR channel used in the UK in our radios. This is so we can go anywhere in the UK and access the channels used locally. There are hundreds of combinations and it's impossible to co-ordinate all the agencies, so we took the approach of listing them all by zones based upon the frequency pairs. This way if we go to Wales and are told to use DR032h, all you have to do is go to the DR03 zone and turn the middle knob until you find it. If a team is using digital simplex you go to the DS zone and find the DS number they tell you to use.