At 05:36 AM 7/12/2010, you wrote: >Bottom line -- in this area at least, coordinations will not be >pulled from existing analog repeaters any time soon, no matter how >little utilized they are. It's just the nature of the Bylaws of the >frequency coordination organization about who gets to vote, and >human nature to not want to change.
To me, it sounds like the way frequencies are coordinated over there is part of the problem, since the US has a completely distributed system for not only coordination, but band planning, whereas our system here in VK is more centralised, with the WIA handling both band planning and frequency coordination. Of course, our spectrum isn't as congested, with narrow channels being able to be found within the current band plans. A lot of people generally don't like change, and will only follow when it's forced upon them. Down here, CTCSS was once a rare feature on repeaters, and people had been heard to complain that CTCSS was making the repeaters "exclusive". 10 years ago, there were only 3 repeaters in Melbourne that required CTCSS access. Two of them for access control to cross band links (this is required by regulation under some circumstances) and the third because it was on an inner city high rise and subject to a severe RF environment. Two things changed this in recent years. 1. The introduction of low powered "Low Interference Potential Devices (LIPDs)" on 433-434 MHz at the end of the 1990s, which caused interference to repeaters, with protection from interference being withdrawn by the authorities. This necessitated the use of CTCSS in many locations, including here. 2. The proliferation of ex commercial radios with CTCSS capability in the early 2000s, providing a very low cost avenue for both new hams and those with limited funds and older gear to acquire CTCSS capabilities, as well as more established hams putting their earlier CTCSS capable gear on the secondhand market. Today, a significant number of repeaters use CTCSS in the major cities, where a need is seen for tone access, and it is now a non issue. 2 metre repeaters and IRLP/Echolink systems which once suffered pager interference now run CTCSS, if other methods of interference mitigation (filtering, etc) aren't sufficient, and most 2 metre repeaters carry CTCSS on their output, so users can stop pagers from opening the mute. > >Surprisingly, most of those people carry a digital radio around in >their pocket each day, having replaced their analog cell phone with >a digital one years ago. But digital for ham radio? -- No way. Well, here, you had to go digital by 2000, or be content to talking with yourself! :) Analog phones were switched off here in 2000. CDMA didn't last long either, it came and went quickly, and GSM is the mainstay, though supplemented by the WCDMA (UMTS, HSPA, etc) family of 3G technologies that have since proliferated. 73 de VK3JED / VK3IRL http://vkradio.com
