A lot of great point and suggestions and information. Thank You.
However (I believe) that the local D-Star guys have blocked user access to
change things or go to a different reflector or what ever it is called. I read
on the FCC site they do not recognize the word reflector but I did not
understand that and won't even try to ask anything about it. I wait until I get
much more educated.
Now because of what you have told me I am begining to think that because of not
being able to control the D-Star stuff as you have stated is what is giving me
two things. A bad idea of what D-Star is and I am not having the chance to
learn by having those ablilities you explained.
Your idea of offering to buy or at least get a group together to help get
another one so that people can do the things you explained may be the best
idea. And may help the whole area.
There is another one. Which I forgot to mention but it is about 70 miles from
me. Funny sometimes I can listen without the R2D2 on it better than the one
that is less than 20 miles from me.
Thanks For Your Information.
I will read it over again and see if I myself can make some suggestions that
may make our D-Star much better. Like you said those things don't grow on trees.
Again Thanks. I am glad I put my opinions and stuff out there because I have
received some great help in understanding the ins and outs and possibly the
reasons why I can't seem to get my voice out there.
KD0AJZ
James
----- Original Message -----
From: Nate Duehr
To: dstar_digital@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, April 07, 2010 12:37 AM
Subject: Re: [DSTAR_DIGITAL] DSTAR communication
On Apr 6, 2010, at 6:36 PM, James Earl Wells wrote:
> Be Kind.. Let Others have a Chance at the Ham Line.
>
From having been a repeater club President in the past, I can definitely
state with some clarity two things:
a) Repeaters are a shared resource. You'll never make every user happy with
how the other users utilize the system.
b) All repeaters have at LEAST 8 hours a day of down-time unless they're part
of large permanently-linked systems. In D-STAR there are no large linked
systems unless the repeater has been linked to a Reflector, so any local user
can disconnect from the Reflector and then connect anywhere else they like.
Repeaters are busiest in the morning "drive-time" and evening from "drive-time"
until about 9PM in most areas. If you have personal time available outside of
those hours, you can do plenty of operating, with virtually no one around to
"bother" you. (We have a couple of repeaters in this area that tend to have the
night-owls, and operations continue on the VHF late-night machine typically
until midnight, and a UHF machine gathers up all the late-night truck drivers
and other workers until around 4-5 AM every day.)
This all assumes you have local repeater operators that haven't blocked the
ability of local users to control the links. Check with them for details.
Hopefully they haven't done that.
If the traffic truly is too high for a single repeater, consider that you can
always offer to buy the repeater operators another repeater on another band...
if they don't already have a complete D-STAR "stack" of VHF, UHF, and 1.2 GHz,
and you're unsure of your technical skill to install a repeater system. I don't
know of any repeater operators who would turn that offer down, unless you
offered ONLY to buy the repeater -- the antennas, feedline, duplexer, and other
assorted items often cost as much as, or more than the repeater itself.
Or even offer to buy enough equipment to put up another repeater in the same
band at another location... there's all sorts of options.
Repeaters don't grow on trees. Someone spent thousands of dollars on all the
gear to make the repeater work that you're wanting to use there... users often
don't have enough money to single-handedly buy a repeater by themselves, but a
bunch of users together who want a quieter D-STAR system, can always band
together and put up a new system...
And of course, there's always simplex...
--
Nate Duehr, WY0X
n...@natetech.com
