WELCOME TO OUR RADIO PROGRAMMING INFORMATION PAGE

Members and friends of Mission Viejo RACES-ARES practice VFTOM so that we are prepared to manually program our radios in an emergency.

Below find links to VFTOM cheat sheets for programming various radios.

If you wish to submit your VFTOM cheat sheet for listing on this page, email to: training@mvraces.org

BACKGROUND:

Safety is always "priority #1" on all incidents, including public service events, operations, activities, meetings, training sessions or (development) exercises. Implementing and maintaining a "safe" operating environment requires policies, procedures and protocols focusing on safety of yourself (and those around you), other incident participants and the general public.

The need to change frequencies quickly may happen with little or no advance notice. Finding yourself in an unsafe operating environments is just one (among many) reason why every emergency "volunteer" responder communicators tasked with providing primary or supplemental communications support must be able to change frequencies with little (or no) advance notice (upon demand), and do so quickly and safely.

"V-F-T-0-M" drills help radio operators to maintain individual and organizational proficiency and ability to change frequencies when required to meet incident objectives or changing mission requirements.

Every emergency communications specialist must be able to change the frequencies of the radio they bring to and use during an incident. Many have created a pocket Quick Reference Card or Sheet for their personal use and memory refresher.

To review, V-F-T-O-M stands for:

1. "V" — Select radio "VFO" mode (you cannot program a radio in "memory" mode).

2. "F" — Select desired or requested (F)requency.

3. "T" — Select desired, requested or needed (T)one.

4. "O" — Select requested or needed (O)ffset, either "plus" (P) or "minus" (M), to include "open" tone (tone enabled on transit or "encode" only (or) tone enabled on both encode and receive or "decode" ... also known as "CTCSS").

5. "M" — Save into (M)emory.

Also - Some like to also add info for removing or replacing data in a memory slot.

The following was submitted for reference:

VFTOM ALINCO DJ-500T cheat sheet K6HIV.pdf

VFTOM BAOFENG UV5R cheat sheet KB6BXD.pdf

VFTOM BTECH UV-2501-220 Cheat Sheet WA6RUZ.pdf

VFTOM KENWOOD TH-F6A Cheat Sheet N6IOK.pdf

VFTOM WOUXUN HT cheat sheet K6HIV.pdf

VFTOM YAESU FT-60 cheat Sheet AD6AT.pdf

VFTOM YAESU FT-60 cheat sheet WA6BJY.pdf

VFTOM YAESU FT-60R_quick_reference_card W5JCK.pdf

VFTOM YAESU FT-8800 cheat sheet WA6RUZ.pdf