Re: [digitalradio] Re: Re-inventing repeaters via ALE/APRS concepts?

[Steve Gehring, NL7W]

I'm afraid ALE and APRS have little to do with the physical reality of 
retransmitting RF signals in order to provide instantaneous wide-area 
coverage.


Other than the obvious restrictions to mountaintops during bad or snowy 
wx, high sites to this day cannot be mitigated without numerous low 
sites, high costs, and compounded complexities from angles you are yet 
aware of.


Desires and protocols cannot makeup for the physics surrounding RF.

73 de Steve, NL7W



On 6/18/2010 2:57 AM, g4ilo wrote:


You mean, what Echolink does?

Julian, G4ILO

--- In digitalradio@yahoogroups.com 
, Andy obrien  wrote:

>
> This may be a little off the usual digital mode related topics.
>
> Today I was thinking about VHF/UHF FM voice repeaters and the trouble
> repeater owners go to when maintaining a repeater site. Typically
> the location is a high hill , atop a large tower, lots of hard line,
> elaborate lightning protection, expensive and fussy duplexers, etc
> etc. While I am sure it is fun to own such a system, it must
> occasionally be quite a "chore". The chore is sometimes made worse by
> the fact that repeater sites are often the result of begging cellular
> tower operators for a bit of room for the hams, then losing the right
> of access every time the cell site changes ownership (often very
> frequently).
>
> So, in my day-dreaming today, I was thinking that surely modern
> technology could come up with some innovation that would eliminate
> the need to secure high sites atop 500 foot towers. I began to think
> how 2M or 70cm radios could perhaps be re-invented with better
> (smarter) cross-band or within-band repeat functions. Where , based
> on some ALE concepts , K3UK calling a local ham on 2M could have the
> simplex signal picked-up by a station within simplex range and
> repeated to the desired destination station based on known LQA-type
> tables . Or, like APRS, some signals are picked up and echoed
> (repeated) based on number of "hops" than can be expected between
> originating and destination station. Maybe "QST" or "CQ" calls would
> get picked and repeated by the equivalent of "node" stations versus a
> call between two stations ? Of course mobile operations would pose a
> more difficult challenge  back to the drawing board but this
> mega station on a hill idea surely has to be reinvented sometime.
>
> Andy K3UK

Re: [digitalradio] Re: Re-inventing repeaters via ALE/APRS concepts?

[Andy obrien]

but without Internet

On Fri, Jun 18, 2010 at 6:57 AM, g4ilo  wrote:

>
>
> You mean, what Echolink does?
>
> Julian, G4ILO
>
>
> --
>

[digitalradio] Re: Re-inventing repeaters via ALE/APRS concepts?

[g4ilo]

You mean, what Echolink does?

Julian, G4ILO

--- In digitalradio@yahoogroups.com, Andy obrien  wrote:
>
> This may be  a little off the usual digital mode related topics.
> 
> Today I  was thinking about VHF/UHF FM voice repeaters and the trouble
> repeater owners go to when maintaining  a repeater site.  Typically
> the location is a high hill , atop a large tower, lots of hard line,
> elaborate lightning protection, expensive and fussy duplexers, etc
> etc.  While I am sure it is fun to own such a system, it must
> occasionally be quite a "chore".  The chore is sometimes made worse by
> the fact that repeater sites are often the result of begging cellular
> tower operators for a bit of room for the hams, then losing the right
> of access every time the cell site changes ownership (often very
> frequently).
> 
> So, in my day-dreaming today, I was thinking that surely modern
> technology could come up with some innovation  that would eliminate
> the need to secure high sites atop 500 foot towers.  I began to think
> how 2M or 70cm radios could perhaps be re-invented with better
> (smarter) cross-band or within-band repeat functions.  Where ,  based
> on some ALE concepts ,  K3UK calling  a local ham on 2M could have the
> simplex signal  picked-up  by a station within simplex range  and
> repeated to the desired destination station based on known LQA-type
> tables .  Or, like APRS, some signals are picked up and echoed
> (repeated) based on number of "hops" than can be expected between
> originating and destination station.  Maybe "QST" or "CQ" calls would
> get picked and repeated by the equivalent of "node" stations versus a
> call between two stations ?  Of course mobile operations would pose a
> more difficult challenge   back to the drawing board  but this
> mega station on a hill idea surely has to be reinvented sometime.
> 
> Andy K3UK
>