Mike, I suspect you are right about taking forceful action in a lot of cases. The other side of the coin is that at least in northern CA, it seems to me this is less about money and more about control and not wanting change -- human nature stuff. I subscribe to the Yahoo group for members of this coordination group, though I'm not a member. Actually, I should join, though I would not be allowed to vote. But I can see that even for the majority who don't want change, there are a lot of people who have an enormous amount of repeater experience. I don't think most hams who use repeaters realize what goes into building and maintaining a good repeater.
And, there are some people in the organization who want to move forward with new technologies, in particular, to encourage more narrow band modes. I think, over time, attitudes will shift, though we may have to wait for some of the current nay-sayers to move onto other things. Thinking about it, here in the US, the whole frequency coordination thing is pretty vague. Part 97 refers to groups which form to coordinate regional frequencies, basically for repeaters. The only specific part is that when there is interference and one of the repeaters is coordinated, the other repeater needs to solve the problem. Part 97 doesn't talk at all about how coordination groups are certified, how to handle the situation where two groups claim to be coordinators of overlapping areas, what objectives each coordination group should apply when doing coordination, etc. It seems to me coordination groups should apply certain principles or guidelines, including a prime directive to make optimal use of the spectrum for hams and the community, and they should have processes to periodically review coordination decisions to ensure optimal spectrum usage. As it is now, once coordinated, many organizations stop reviewing what happens to those pairs, and in effect, the recipient "owns" the pair, pretty much forever. Of course, with Echolink and IRLP, it is possible to have a repeater that has zero local users, but it still transmits from time to time because it is linked to another repeater. So admittedly it would be hard to gather meaningful data on regional usage. If I were located in another country, I would not believe how it works in the US. The only good thing is that we are allowed to set up repeaters that aren't coordinated, as long as we don't interfere with a coordinated repeater. This is how a lot of new D-Star repeaters get on the air. People set up automated monitors of frequencies, and if they hear nothing there for 3-6 months, they put up their D-Star repeater and hope for the best. In some cases, of course, the owner of the pair goes and plugs in his dusty repeater, transmits once or twice, then complains he's being interfered with. Then it's off to the site, change frequencies and retune the duplexers, and the cycle starts again. I think in some ways it's worse in the UK, since they need a NOV to put up a repeater, and that is not a fast process. I'm sorry, I think this is veering off topic. The good news is that we all know change has started, and in time it will happen no matter what people try to do to block it. I became a ham when AMers still complained about the "squawking duck" sounds of sideband. They complained, but over time, the percentages changed. That will happen for digital, too. Jim - K6JM ----- Original Message ----- From: Michael Lodico To: [email protected] Sent: Sunday, July 11, 2010 4:29 PM Subject: Re: [DSTAR_DIGITAL] Are you exprerencing anti d-star in your area? Hi Jim, Although frequency co-ordination is a necessary evil too much power absolutely corrupts as in the case of repeater co-ordination groups. If there is a large enough group of people that want to put up D-Star repeaters and you can prove that a frequency pair has not been used for over a year I believe a legal challenge would be appropriate. There are too many people that own pairs that want to sell them and I do not believe that should be allowed. If a repeater is off the air for over a year then they should lose their co-ordination. This is something that should also be put in a form of a Docket for FCC ruling. 73 de K1EG Mike J. Moen wrote: > > > There's little chance of D-Star repeaters replacing analog repeaters > in northern California, and I suspect that's true in many places in > the US. The voting members of our frequency coordination organization > are people who have coordinated repeaters, and of course virtually all > of those are analog repeaters. In parts of the region covered by this > organization, and in particular, the greater San Francisco Bay Area, > all available 2 meter pairs have been assigned, and in the same > region, due to the Pave Paws military radar site, repeaters on the 70 > cm band must run at unusably low power levels. > > Recently the coordinators looked at several proposals to refarm 2 > meters, to create parts of the band that could take advantage of > narrow band modes (this would include D-Star). Some ideas were very > carefully crafted to minimize the number of analog repeaters affected > and how much the few that would need to move would have to move, to > keep down costs. > > The voting members -- again made up almost entirely of people who run > analog repeaters -- voted down all proposals, then passed another > motion prohibiting the issue from being raised for three years. > > During the debate, when there were comments made about the large > number of paper repeaters, or unused repeaters, or very lightly used > analog repeaters, there were angry reactions that amounted to "I have > this pair, and you can't take it away from me." > > I am sympathetic to one argument -- some repeaters exist for EmComm > situations, and of course, for the occassional training nets. Those > repeaters need to be available. But there seems no interest in > sharing those pairs with other repeaters that might be more active, > but which would shut down for EmComm training nets or actual emergencies. > > 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. > > 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. > > Jim - K6JM >
