[HoustonHam] The FCC FINALLY gets one right! (From Newsline)

[Chris Boone]

FCC RULES THAT DIGITAL VOICE REPEATERS ARE REPEATERS  (Reversing an earlier
decision by a FCC staffer)

The FCC has ruled that the claim by some owners of digital repeaters and
some frequency coordinators that digital voice repeaters are not actually
repeaters due to the time delay inherent in digital to analog and analog to
digital conversions is erroneous. 

In response to a request for a Declaratory Ruling on this issue from the
Northern California Packet Association the FCC says that when a receiver and
transmitter are tied together as a repeater it is a repeater. The full text
of the FCC response to Gary R. Mitchell, President of the Northern
California Packet Association is reprinted below. 

ARNewsline will have more on this issue in our next newscast to be released
on Friday, March 27th. 

ARNewsline 

** 

Text of FCC Digital Voice Repeater Decision 


Mr. Gary R. Mitchell 
President, Northern California Packet Association 
P.O. Box K 
Sunnyvale, CA 94087 

Re: Petition for Declaratory Ruling filed December 5, 2007 

Dear Mr. Mitchell: 

This is in response to the petition for declaratory ruling that you filed on
December 5, 2007, requesting that the Commission clarify the definition of a
repeater in the amateur service rules. A repeater in the amateur service is
defined as “[a]n amateur station that simultaneously retransmits the
transmission of another amateur station on a different channel or channels.”
You seek clarification of whether the word “simultaneously” in the
definition refers to the signal information being retransmitted, or to the
fact that the receiver and transmitter must both be active at the same time
while acting on the same signal information. 

Section 97.205(b) of the Commission’s Rules specifies the bands on which
amateur repeater stations may operate. You state that some amateur radio
operators are operating on bands other than those set forth in Section
97.205(b) with systems that are essentially voice repeater stations, but
that digitize and retransmit the user's voice, on the theory that because
there is a small delay in retransmitting the signal of another amateur
station, the signal is not “simultaneously” retransmitted and, therefore,
the system is not a repeater. 

Prior to 1994, a repeater was defined as "[a]n amateur station that
automatically retransmits the signals of other stations." The Commission
revised the definition in order to clarify that certain accommodations for
message forwarding systems do not apply to other operating activities such
as repeaters and auxiliary stations. The Commission proposed to define a
repeater as “[a]n amateur station that instantaneously retransmits the
transmission of another amateur station on a different channel or channels,”
but ultimately replaced “instantaneously” with “simultaneously” because
commenters noted that there is always a small propagation delay through a
repeater. As one commenter explained, “The word ‘simultaneously’ in this
case means that the repeater is receiving and transmitting concurrently,
whereas each signal might be slightly displaced in time between receive and
transmit." 

To be able to repeat another station's transmission, a repeater must be able
to receive a transmission from another station and retransmit it. Because
the word "simultaneously" in the definition is used to modify "retransmit,"
we believe it refers to a repeater station's transmitter being active when
retransmitting the signal received by the repeater station’s receiver from
another amateur station. We conclude, therefore, that “simultaneously” as
used in the definition of a repeater refers to the receiver and transmitter
both being active at the same time. 

Accordingly, IT IS ORDERED that, pursuant to Section 4(i) of the
Communications Act of 1934, as amended, 47 U.S.C. § 154(i), and Section 1.2
of the Commission’s Rules, 47 C.F.R. § 1.2, the Petition for Declaratory
Ruling filed on December 5, 2007 by Gary R. Mitchell IS GRANTED to the
extent indicated above. 

This action is taken under delegated authority pursuant to Sections 0.131
and 0.331 of the Commission's Rules, 47 C.F.R. §§ 0.131 and 0.331. 

FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION 

Scot Stone 
Deputy Chief, Mobility Division 
Wireless Telecommunications Bureau