Hi Glen, If i were going to install a digital repeater i would be going with a P25 system. Hardware is very accessible and not to expensive. Also take in to consideration interoperability. Motorola, Kenwood, Macom, Icom, Yeasu, Thales, BK, Datron, etc and many others all provide radios for P25. Not to Bash Icom, butt how many do you think are really going to buy off on the D-Star system. P25 is established and works.
Mike -------------- Original message -------------- From: "Glenn Shaw" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Hi Steve You have a lot of valid points. There ought to be a way to create a sub band within the 2M and 440 repeater pairs for digital. Maybe interstitial. Who knows. My hope is that people decide on D Star or P25 so we will not have the old VHS vs Beta thing. Glenn N1GBY -----Original Message----- From: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Steve S. Bosshard (NU5D) Sent: Thursday, September 20, 2007 10:26 AM To: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: [Repeater-Builder] Making room for the new guy - repeater coordination - Hope this is not too off topic... Hi Glenn, If old Joe's repeater were usable and folks were making use of it by all means leave it alone. Poor old Joe's repeater is not working so well with a bad antenna, and it only has 2 folks that make contact for a couple of minutes a day. The folks wanting the digital repeater could help fix Joe's antenna and get it back in shape, but Joe don't want to mess with it. If they get is back in shape they have a 20 Khz FM repeater not much different than the others in town. If they partner with Joe and upgrade to digital, depending on whether they occupy the middle of the channel, or offset up or down 6.25 Khz, they can restore Joe's system to a ?better? system, and make room for one more repeater in the area. This is only because there are no more 2M or 70CM channels available in Joe's neighborhood, and the folks wanting to place the new digital system have no other place within the rules to go in the band they want. Never would I want wholesale run this through and make it happen, but thoughtful well planned migration might be a good thing. Also like you said, the new equipment would cost more than fixing the old system for Joe, but then folks would not have the benefits of the digital system - no white noise (garble instead), good comm grade audio, and a smaller occupied bandwidth. I certainly respect your comments, and your points are valid. I am just trying to put forth some ideas that will foster a planned gradual move for some folks to digital - by no means a wholesale jump like the cellular folks did. Also there are still folks with radios that don't have channel guard tone - some things don't change. Lets put your 2 cents and a few others together and have a cup of coffee, 73, Steve NU5D (BTW - I can assure you that not all land mobile operators, RCCs etc have buckets of money - forced migration in the SMR business was very costly for me, and this don't take into account loss of customers who didn't want to mess with re-programming radios) sb. Glenn Shaw wrote: > Steve > > Wouldnt it be easy and more effective and cheaper if your: ..."hand > full of folks" just go ahead and use Joes repeater that is already on > the air instead of complicating the situation more than it needs to > be? Of course > > > Refarming ham radio wholesale will be ill advised and I dont think you > will see it in our lifetimes.. The users of ham radio are not the US > government or public saftey or RCC's with bottomless buckets of money > to just go out and replace equipment. We are losing people in the ham > radio community not gaining them. Most hams buy a radio and use it for > years and dont have to > > For those that want to experiment and promote investigation of the new > dig modulation such as DStar and P25 that is good and we should > encourage this on new spectrum that can be found that is unused, > without destroying the existing repeater sub bands. > > Just my .02 for thought. > > Glenn N1GBY > No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG. Version: 7.5.485 / Virus Database: 269.13.25/1018 - Release Date: 9/19/2007 3:59 PM