<<Personally I stay the away from Public Safety "professionals" who need assistance of any sort -- who are recommending the use of anything that's not built to take the abuse of 100% duty-cycle for my "safety" -- and using tax dollars to buy it. (Smaller groups with no budget, okay maybe... but I carefully explain the problem and recommend they go find a real budget somewhere.)>>
Ok, since it appears there is an inherent soapbox with any thread, here's mine. Just where would I get a REAL budget? Do you want to chip in? I am operating on a purely volunteer basis to try and help the community in the event of a disaster. I am NOT talking 911 service here. I am talking about a group of individuals who have been trained to help when the first responders are overwhelmed. Obviously not everyone knows what a CERT team is, but it is very much like an ARES team, and gets budget money in the same way. We are sponsered by our local Fire Department, which is by the way, a volunteer group in and of itself. Yes, the frequencies we are using fall within the Public Service band, but that is mostly because it is city licensed, not amateaur licensed. I can ask the city to provide me budget for the equipment, and I have. The fire chief had to decide whether to purchase training equipment for his men, or purchase a nice high end repeater with 100% duty cycle that could be used "in the event of a disister" and for communications training excercises. Hmmm, I wonder why he chose to train his men. I did hire a "professional" to install the repeater. For the grant money that we received, we got what we could afford, and know it's limitations. We also hired a professional to purchase our original VHF handy talkies. We ended up with a bunch of Motoroal CP-200 units with NiCad batteries, and $60 price tag on a proprietary BNC antenna adapter (something that other units only charge $10 for). Not a bad little radio if you don't plan on using it for much. And hey, it's a Motorola! But I sure the professional walked away happy. So, back to the original post. I simply asked for some help doing something that I believe can be done. If it can't be done, then fine, tell me I'm stupid and I'll be on my way. If it can, please tell me how, that was all I asked. I didn't ask whether you thought I should or not, although I agree that there are always things that one might not be aware of worth mentioning. There is no way in a forum such as this that I can explain, nor you could understand everything that has already been done to get to this point. If you cannot help answer the question, then please don't waste my time with the incinuating arguments that I don't know what I'm doing. I don't! That is why I came here to begin with! Bryan --- In Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com, Nate Duehr <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Mike Pugh wrote: > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > >> Also check to be sure the FCC license reflects the locations, type of > >> service (FB; FB2; or MO) and power levels being proposed for the VHF > >> frequency. > >> > >> > > I'm glad someone else brought this up. During my 18 years in LMR, I ran > > into a bunch of instances where someone wanted to link this to that, or > > wanted to use a non type accepted radio or wanted to do several other > > less than legal things. My response was always something like make sure > > your station is completely legal if you are not the license holder. > > Hell, it'd be nice to always see PUBLIC SAFETY using rigs that are rated > for 100% duty-cycle even. Icom mobiles, just aren't. > > Personally I stay the away from Public Safety "professionals" who need > assistance of any sort -- who are recommending the use of anything > that's not built to take the abuse of 100% duty-cycle for my "safety" -- > and using tax dollars to buy it. (Smaller groups with no budget, okay > maybe... but I carefully explain the problem and recommend they go find > a real budget somewhere.) > > I'll gladly pay for the higher priced real repeaters/radios needed for > Public Safety links from my taxes. ] > > I don't want some mobile blowing up and someone getting hurt or not > having the comms they need to stay safe. > > The stuff I've seen installed by "professionals" sometimes gives me the > willies, especially when I know its tied to life-or-death dispatch > systems for police and fire. > > Those folks in the field deserve better engineering than some of the > junk I've seen installed... > > Nate WY0X >
