What are the CB Emergency Channels?

The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) has allocated certain channels on the CB bands for Emergency Use Only. This is detailed in the Citizen Band Radio Class Licence.

The use of these frequencies for a non-emergency purpose is an offence under the Radiocommunications Act 1992.

UHF Band

There are TWO emergency channels allocated on the Australian UHF CB band, they are Channels 5 and 35

Channel 5 (476.525 MHz) is the PRIMARY emergency channel. Some regions have emergency repeaters in operation, but if there is no repeater you should use channel 5 in simplex mode.

Channel 35 (477.275 MHz) is a secondary emergency channel, and is used as the ‘INPUT’ channel for emergency repeaters. It is therefore vitally important that channel 35 UHF is NOT used for anything other than emergency communications.

HF (27MHz) Band

Channel 9 (27.065 MHz) on USB / AM.