[FADCA] Digital Repeater Coordination

[bud Thompson]

I picked this up from the Repeater Builders e-mail group.  None of these 
comments are mine - just a quote from an e-mail on the group.

bud


"The Illinois Repeater Association last week implemented a plan to
allocate repeater channels for the digital modes based on bandwidth,
regardless of the mode involved, be it P25, D-Star, Mototrbo, or whatever.

Details will be up at www.ilra.net soon.

Sounds like the wise way to go.

W.r.t. MARC, if it doesn't wish to recognize P25 then it has left the door
open for another coordination entity to coordinate that mode in that region.

I don't have any digital VHF/UHF equipment, but from everything I've heard
& read I'm inclined to favor P25 over DStar. The recent discussions
regarding servicing are particularly revealing. At least with P25 you can
put the equipment in analog mode (assuming you have no digital service
monitor - a safe assumption for most of us) for troubleshooting &
servicing, then go back to digital once all the RF "issues" have been
tracked down in analog mode. With DStar there is no such option; you have
to plug it in & just accept whatever performance level you get. If
something starts blocking the input you have no idea what it is."