[SMCARA] To tone or not to tone?

[Sam Leach]

Here's an input from a would-be 2 meter DXer.  If you consider working
distant repeaters as "DX"...then hear me out.  I'm trying right now to work
a friend in South Carolina...via a single repeater hop...as conditions
permit.  It's an interesting and challenging experiment.  On one frequency
that we are trying, there is a West Virginia repeater that keeps jumping on
line because it requires no PL, each time I try to reach an easily
accessible North Carolina repeater that might make the trip for us.  There
is no way that I can get the WV repeater out of the way.  

I think that repeater coordination should include PL, so that you could
sneak by two or three repeaters and get to one that you specifically want to
bring up...and repeaters on a common frequency should not share a common PL
for many states in all directions.  

There was once an argument that many radios didn't have PL (I own several
that don't, so I understand the concern)...but I think the value of PL, in a
global coordination sense, is significant.  On the other hand...I don't know
how often our .64 machine gets in the way of someone trying to bring up a
distant .64 machine.  I do know that when the band is open, we could choose
which repeater we were trying to work on .64...and as a result reach distant
ones that we can't right now, because our local machine responds to carrier
only.

We might also want to think about being able to eliminate the PL (for some
set period of time) by using a certain touch tone sequence (that doesn't use
A, B, C or D, because older radios don't have that either))...that way old
radios could still play. Or...we could only enable PL (CTCSS) when the band
is open.  Many of the big repeaters work it that way (147.300, in
Winchester, is an example)

Let me summarize...I don't really have a burning opinion...but these
thoughts seem valid to me.

73

KLC

-----Original Message-----
From: smcara-bounces at mailman.qth.net [mailto:smcara-bounces at mailman.qth.net]
On Behalf Of KG3BOZ
Sent: Saturday, October 09, 2010 8:06 PM
To: SMCARA Reflector (E-mail)
Subject: [SMCARA] To tone or not to tone?

	Gentlemen,

I would like to propose a topic for this month's club meeting.

As you may recall, our previous repeater system would not
allow a CTCSS tone on the input (it caused QRM on the output)

The new repeater system can accommodate a CTCSS tone, eliminating or
reducing the skip interference from distant hams in Virginia, 
Pennsylvania, et al.

It's a quick, simple matter to turn on a tone on the input of the repeater.

The question is:

Do you want the club to require a tone on the input of 146.64, or would 
You prefer to keep it as is (no tone required to activate the repeater?)

73 DE KG3BOZ (Boz)







______________________________________________________________
SMCARA mailing list
Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/smcara
Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
Post: mailto:SMCARA at mailman.qth.net

This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html