[FADCA] Digital Repeater Coordination

[Doug Ferrell]

On Tue, 24 Apr 2007, bud Thompson wrote:

{snip}

> 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."


  Bud we are implementing D-Star up here in Tallahassee. Although the
initial investment is expensive for the repeaters (unless you get the Icom
freebee repeeater like we did), the P25 end user equipment is about 3
times the cost of the amateur equipment. Since Icom is the only player
currently, the cost of the amateur mobiles/portables will come down once
Kenwood and others start producing their own Dstar products.

  We do have a local shop that is amateur friendly in case of problems on
the digital repeater equipment. So far the repeater equipment is working
fine in the test environment and it's really streamlined equipment. Not at
all like an analog repeater. I think that most repeater owners/trustees
would not have access to service monitors so they would most likely have
to involve their local shop or some ham that is lucky enough to have that
expensive equipment.

  We do have a yahoo group called the NorthFloridaD-Star in case you want
to keep up on the progress up here on the D-Star project.

   Anyway... just my 2 cent comments! [GRIN]

 -- 
...DOUG
KD4MOJ