[W2CRA] CRA: Will You Lose Your Repeater Site?

[William Powell]

All,

Advise you all to read the article at: http://www.eham.net/articles/36596 and the comments, such as they are:
At risk but no immediate danger: Linvale, Kingwood, Bloomsbury

Bill - WB1GOT


Will You Lose Your Repeater Site?

George Odom Sr. (K4ETN) on July 10, 2016 

Will you lose your repeater site? -- We all, at one time or another have heard of this happening. Yes, it's true. So
why, you ask.

My impetus for writing this article is that today I found out our club has until the end of the day this Wednesday to
remove our repeater from the site it has been on for over 30 years.

Oh, we can stay on site. But we will have to pay. And pay dearly we would. $700/month is not in our clubs budget.

Here's how it breaks down:
22 feet vertical tower space @ $25/ft.
(That’s under 100 feet AGL, over 100 feet the cost goes up)
3 square feet of floor space @ 25/sq. ft.
Total per month site space- $700.00

Let's go back at least to the 1960's. Long ago there were privately owned two-way radio shops. These were affiliated
with the major two way radio manufacturers.

Many of these owners were hams also, and for them gratis use of their site and tower space wasn't a big deal to them.
They wanted to give back to the hobby.

Time marches on. Enter the 1990's. The shop owners are now older. Cell phones are taking over the personal
communications market. Nextel comes out with Direct Connect. Wow two way radio and a phone all in a small package!

So, Jims Two Way shop starts to feel the pinch. No new customers that need a base and 3 to 5 mobile radios at $10/month
on a community repeater. Jim starts losing customers because all of their employees now have their own personal phone.

You do see where this is going, right?

So Jim is contacted by ABT Tower Management Company out of DeadEnd, Nebraska. Would you like to sell your tower site
Jim?

This is a company of investors who see the future of PCS (Personal Communications Services, read cellular.) They will
pay Jim a lot of money and maybe agree to let him keep a certain amount of floor space and tower space for a couple of
community repeaters and antennas for a couple of years and then Jim will have to pay for the site just like everyone
else.

So, they waved a check at Jim for a lot of money. More than he would make renting out time on a couple of community
repeaters. And he took it. Oh, btw the ham repeaters have to go. They aren't producing revenue.

Every foot of vertical space on a tower has to produce monthly revenue. That's why they are in business.

Anyone who has repeaters on a gratis site had best be thankful because this is sign of the times. There is no free lunch
anymore.

Your equipment and installation had better be on par with commercial standards. Installation, grounding, lighting
protection and the use of circulators, isolators and pass cavities need to pass muster.

Poor engineering practices that cause mixing and interference will get your machine booted off the mountain faster than
you can drive down.

Good housekeeping is another item. Cabling run willy nilly, unsecured feedlines, no lighting protection or improperly
installed will again put your site space at risk.

If you are getting a free ride, at least do a professional job on your equipment installation. Everyone will thank you.

So here we are, on Wednesday morning we will be taking down our equipment. Fortunately our tech committee has been
looking for another site. And we have one. It took a lot of work, and we are at minimum a couple of weeks away, maybe a
month from getting the repeater back on the air at it's new home.

We will lose 40% of our coverage area due to the new site being 1300 feet lower. It is what it is.

We have to submit a technical document to the building manager. Agree to all the rules they have set forth and every
facet must meet with their approval.

Hopefully we will survive for a long time at our new site.

73
K4ETN