Hello back, Should be a nice change Tony... but you're going to need the proper equipment in place and to consider all the issues before you make the change.
> Half of our users believe that the repeater's output power is > perfectly matched to its receiver. That is, users of high powered > mobile radios generally lose repeater reception at about the same > time the repeater's receiver loses them. Man are you going to mix up a lot of opinions with the above... We like to call some repeaters "alligator machines" all mouth and no ears. :-) You didn't say if many of your users have portables or if mobile/base operation is primary for most folks on your system. Some repeater owner/ops don't like/want portables as the primary means to access machine. But keep in mind there are ways to increase the receive side of your repeater. If you improve one side you could also improve the other side... Also remember the antenna is the first and probably only/best free lunch improvement you can make to a repeater. > However, the other half of our users believe doubling the repeater's > power output would generate increased activity since the repeater > could be heard more "comfortably." It will... but in some cases you might not want the extra users. Just depends on your user base and what they really want to have on the repeater. > 1) Will the hundreds we pay to upgrade actually translate into significantly increased range? Only if the increase can be done without hosing up the receiver performance. Yes if you also increase the repeater performance in most directions. 2) Will we risk generating additional receiver noise by doubling our output power, thus losing coverage in the process? Sure if you don't properly protect the receiver. But keep in mind that jumping to 100 watts is done all the time so you're not just "out there" on your own. 3) Will using a higher power level shorten the life of other > system components over time (e.g., power supply)? Probably not if you play by the rules... > By the way, our frequency coordination would be valid even if we > doubled our output power. If you don't have a co-channel horses-behind to deal with... great! cheers, skipp
