Re: [DSTAR_DIGITAL] US D-STAR band planning and directories (Was:No DSTAR in South Carolina or Georgia?)
On Tue, May 04, 2010 at 08:56:02PM -0700, bruce mallon wrote: EchoLink? Sure. D-Star? Not repeaters. Repeaters can't operate there. I don't remember saying anything about repeaters on 145.500 -145.800 How much D-Star simplex work is there? D-Star is not anywhere near as useful without a repeater and Internet gateway than it is with one. Now IF D-Star started using 146.400 -146.600 for inputs and 147.400-147.600 for outputs and simply sqashed all analog simplex how long before the FCC would step in ? The FCC *doesn't care*. That's a matter for hams to work out among themselves. See my point is Keep the digital and echo-link?on a part of the band that has no one else on and let the repeater groups work out freeing up pairs and there IS NO PROBLEM . You can't keep D-Star out of the repeater band. -- Jay Maynard, K5ZC at K6ZC port Bhttp://www.conmicro.com http://www.k6zc.org http://www.tronguy.net http://jmaynard.livejournal.com (Yes, that's me!) http://www.hercules-390.org
Re: [DSTAR_DIGITAL] US D-STAR band planning and directories (Was:No DSTAR in South Carolina or Georgia?)
On Tue, May 04, 2010 at 08:39:52PM -0700, J. Moen wrote: Regarding the US -- since the coordinating bodies do give out coordinations, and Part 97 says any interference between a coordinated and uncoordinated repeater must primarily be resolved by the latter, these bodies do have a lot of power. Nowhere near as much as you may think. Don't forget that coordination organizations are run by volunteers in their spare time, with little to no ability to absorb the costs involved in a lawsuit. Even if the suit is groundless, it could still destroy the organization, and reach into the coordinator's personal pocket. Coordinators are also not appointed, supported, or recognized by the FCC. Anyone can be a coordinator if they get the support of the amateur community. A coordinator has *zero* power to tell someone to get off the air. The entire extent of its involvement is if the FCC asks it who's coordinated. The FCC, *if* there's harmful interference, *then* tells the uncoordinated party to fix the interference. If there's no interference, *nobody gets shut down*. In the end, coordination is not a technical job. It's a political one. As long as there is no formal support for coordinators, and full exposure to legal liability, it will remain so. I don't forsee any substantive changes to Part 97 regarding frequency coordination, so improvements will have to come from the coordination organizations. In some regions, these are led by forward thinking people (I'm betting you are one of them) who encourage better use of the spectrum they manage -- and that doesn't necessarily mean they support digital voice or D-Star, but they do educate and lead their repeater operators to look at the bigger issues and encourage ways to maximize use of that spectrum, while at the same time, developing a viable transition process that existing repeater operators can live with. Speaking personally, I believe D-Star is the future of amateur radio for the niche that analog VHF/UHF-FM currently occupies, for a host of reasons. The Minnesota Repeater Council does all it can to encourage its adoption. It also has changed, in the last several months, to a coordination process based purely on coverage modeling. We think this will allow more repeaters to be placed on the bands, in holes in coverage that were previously blocked by repeaters a long way away that didn't cover the area that it was protected in. But the D-Star community can help, too. Is 2 meters full? Then DON'T PUT UP A 2-METER BOX! Pretty much every D-Star radio these days is a dual bander. The few single-banders are all first-generation and a pain to use, and the D-Star community has long recommended that people not use them anyway. Given that, what difference does it make whether the repeater is on 2 or 440? But I think that's where the game has to be played here in the US. I agree. Just remember that the coordinators can't just wave a magic wand and make existing systems go away. Only the FCC can do that. -- Jay Maynard, K5ZC at K6ZC port Bhttp://www.conmicro.com http://www.k6zc.org http://www.tronguy.net http://jmaynard.livejournal.com (Yes, that's me!) http://www.hercules-390.org
Re: [DSTAR_DIGITAL] US D-STAR band planning and directories (Was:No DSTAR in South Carolina or Georgia?)
On 5/5/2010 7:07 AM, Jay Maynard wrote: In the end, coordination is not a technical job. It's a political one. Actually if the FCC deems that you didn't do the technical side of coordination right, and testifies to such during a lawsuit, you might find yourself on the wrong side of a negligence or gross negligence civil claim if a case made it all the way to an Administrative Law judge. The chances of that happening to a volunteer group are small, but as someone pointed out... just the lawsuit itself would probably bankrupt most coordinating bodies. Nate WY0X
Re: [DSTAR_DIGITAL] US D-STAR band planning and directories (Was:No DSTAR in South Carolina or Georgia?)
Jay K5ZC wrote: There's no way to force repeaters off the air, coordinated or uncoordinated. Coordination bodies don't have that power. Only the FCC can do it, and they're not about to. Regarding the US -- since the coordinating bodies do give out coordinations, and Part 97 says any interference between a coordinated and uncoordinated repeater must primarily be resolved by the latter, these bodies do have a lot of power. I don't forsee any substantive changes to Part 97 regarding frequency coordination, so improvements will have to come from the coordination organizations. In some regions, these are led by forward thinking people (I'm betting you are one of them) who encourage better use of the spectrum they manage -- and that doesn't necessarily mean they support digital voice or D-Star, but they do educate and lead their repeater operators to look at the bigger issues and encourage ways to maximize use of that spectrum, while at the same time, developing a viable transition process that existing repeater operators can live with. In other localities, that isn't happening yet, and many of us will have left the planet before it does happen. But I think that's where the game has to be played here in the US. Jim - K6JM - Original Message - From: Jay Maynard To: dstar_digital@yahoogroups.com Sent: Tuesday, May 04, 2010 7:20 PM Subject: Re: [DSTAR_DIGITAL] US D-STAR band planning and directories (Was:No DSTAR in South Carolina or Georgia?) On Tue, May 04, 2010 at 04:58:00PM -0700, bruce mallon wrote: D-Star and echo-link will fit nicely into 145.500 - 145.700 with no movement of other stations. EchoLink? Sure. D-Star? Not repeaters. Repeaters can't operate there. Lets make use of THAT band before you want thousands of stations to move AND if a repeater is not on or is not being used the local coordination should have the right to give THAT pair to a d-star group.also ALL uncoordinated repeaters need to be? REMOVED analog or not .. How do you decide? And are you willing to pay to defend the inevitable lawsuits? There's no way to force repeaters off the air, coordinated or uncoordinated. Coordination bodies don't have that power. Only the FCC can do it, and they're not about to. Jay Maynard, K5ZC Chairman, Minnesota Repeater Council
