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Quick Keys
Organisations such as the RFS have been programmed into groups on the scanner. While scanning,
these groups can be turned on or off by pressing one of the number (quick keys) buttons on the
scanner keypad. For example pressing “3” will turn the NSW police on or off. This means that if a
group is off then they will not be scanned.
You can tell the status of a group while scanning by checking the bottom two lines on the screen (see
image on page 1). If a number is displayed then the group is being scanned, an “X” indicates that the
group is not being scanned, while a blank means nothing stored. Note; pressing a number to activate
or deactivate a group only works while the unit is scanning and the numbers are visible.
Conventional PMR groups such as the RFS and CB channels are displayed on the second last line (SO)
while the GRN groups (GRP) are on the bottom line of the screen.
Quick Key list (Press to activate or deactivate scanning)
PMR
Press
GRN
Press *
Local RFS
1
ACT RFS
Function – 1
Old analogue RFS
2
NSW Ambo
Function – 2
NSW Police
3
NSW Fire and Rescue
Function – 3
CB
0
Lake George RFS
Function – 4
NSW SES
Function – 5
RFS Field Ops
Function – 6
RFS Fire Ground
Function – 7
* Function is the upper rubber button on the left side, Function – 1 means hold Function and press 1.
PMR and GRN
The Southern Tablelands RFS zone uses PMR (Private Mobile Radio). The channels and frequencies
(420-424 MHz digital) are reserved for the exclusive use of the local (STZ) RFS, hence the word
“Private”. The zone makes use of 10 repeaters which are linked. Providing you select the closest
repeater frequency you will hear all RFS traffic within the zone.
The GRN (Government Radio Network) is a shared resource and is shared between NSW Fire and
Rescue, NSW Ambulance, SES and many other NSW and ACT government services and who all use
the same frequencies on the same repeaters. Each organisation such as ACT RFS is issued a “Talk
Group” which is displayed as a channel number and separates the transmissions. A particular
repeater will only retransmit radio traffic from an organisation if one of their trucks is within range
of that repeater. Local GRN repeaters are located at Mundoonen, Collector, One Tree Hill and
Bookham. Consequently you will probably not hear much from ACT RFS or Lake George RFS unless
you can monitor ACT GRN repeaters or the Bungendore GRN repeater, or one of their trucks comes
our way and automatically accesses (polls) one of the four local GRN repeaters. I have programmed
in about 20 of the closest GRN repeaters, however depending on your location many won’t be
accessible from the Yass River area.
RECOMMENDATION
When you first turn the scanner on it will probably be on hold on My Spring RFS. You can leave it
there or turn the knob to select a stronger repeater or press Scan. If scanning, I have programmed
the scanner with all the groups turned off except RFS. Unless you’re a scanner nerd, I would leave it
that way. If a particular repeater is scratchy, press L/O twice in quick succession while on Hold on
that repeater. This will lock out that repeater when scanning.
Nev M 2013