[KYHAM] tone squelch etc (long)

[Dave]

Brandon Nuttall wrote:

>Dave,
>
>--- wa4qal at ix.netcom.com wrote:
>  
>
>>I wonder what the source of the information is for
>>that web-site.  I quickly
>>found one glaring error on it (It has a 146.685
>>machine in both Lexington
>>and Georgetown, which obviously is in error.).
>>    
>>
>
>I disagree that that is a "glaring error." First, most
>people can hit the Georgetown 146.685 repeater from
>Lexington with a 5 watt HT and a rubber duck.
>Secondly, the frequency and offset are correct in both
>instances.
>  
>

Well, I happened to find that error within about 15 seconds of bringing the
site up, so that makes it pretty glaring to me.  I could probably find some
other errors there if I wanted to take the time to study the list a bit, 
but I
wasn't that interested in it.

As for being able to bring up the Georgetown repeater with 5 Watts from
an HT and a rubber duck, sure, that's probably possible from parts of
Lexington.  But, I'm pretty sure that you couldn't do it from the southern
part of Fayette county near the river.  On the other hand, you can bring
the machine up from I-75 near Corinth, and, if you were thinking that
the machine was in Lexington, I doubt if you'd even try from there.

>As to the source of information, the source is amateur
>radio operators. For example, if you return to the
>artscipub.com listing of Lexington repeaters, you will
>see that I have added a note stating the correct
>location of the repeater. It was as simple as clicking
>on the More link.
>

That's fine, but the problem is that not all repeater owners are that 
great about
listing their information.  And, while the information can be corrected 
when an
error is found, I'm sure that there are still errors in there that 
haven't been found
yet.  But, probably more troublesome is the case when a repeater changes. 
In that case, the information is still out there saying that it exists 
on a certain
frequency, with a certain tone, and it may not be there at all.  Sure, 
one or two
of these won't be a catastrophe, but as the data degenerates more and more,
it becomes more problemmatic.  And, I won't even touch on the situation 
where
someone adds incorrect information (e.g., a machine goes down for 
maintenance,
and someone adds a comment that it's been taken down permanently).

>It is sometimes a challenge to determine if and which
>tone is in use. I have an HT that will scan for tones,
>but I need to hear a QSO on the repeater to do it. I
>found one solution on a repeater in Evansville,
>Indiana. I had looked in the ARRL repeater book and
>had the frequency programmed. When I keyed it, the
>repeater IDed and announced that a tone of xxx.x was
>in use. I couldn't bring up the repeater again until I
>set the tone.
>  
>

I've seen (and could even build, if I was interested enough) a tone decoder.
Or, it's even possible to find a tone by brute force.  But, all of that 
takes
time.  And, if I'm traveling cross country, I don't want to take the 
time to
find out the tones necessary to access a machine.  Sometimes, it's nice to
just put the rig on scan, and wait for it to lock in on a busy frequency. 
That's pretty painless now since you don't have to funble through a book
(while driving), looking for the pair and tone combination (only to find 
that
the information is stale).


| This, of course, suggests a very simple solution.

>Announce the tone frequency when the repeater IDs.
>  
>

Oh, if you'd only seen the bloody confrontations that I have about voice
versus CW ids on repeaters that I have.  Some clubs and/or members are
PASSIONATE about the type of ID that their machines have.  I'm not
saying that either position is the correct one, and I can even sympathize
with both sides.  But, how many hams out there are going to copy the tone
frequency at 20 words per minute in CW?

>Brandon
>KG4RRI
>  
>

Dave
WA4QAL