Why reinvent the wheel? SAME receivers have been out for several years.
I bought a new Midland for $25 at a hamfest about three years ago. It can be
programmed for several SAME code counties, different alerts, etc. It works
well at a broadcast station with 50,000 watts ERP on an FM as well as
co-located ham repeaters on two and 440. Several megawatt (or so it seems!)
pagers system are about a mile away.
The voltage states on the LED indicators can be used for determining
alerts, tests, etc. Should be useful to control an input to a repeater.
FWIW, the EAS decoder/encoders used in broadcast facilities usually
start at over a grand, more like $3000, for a decent one.
Have no experience with the Rat Shack models, but it would seem that
trying to build your own SAME decoder is a lot of work when other options
exists, other than an academic exercise. And I can't think of a legitimate
reason to retransmit SAME codes on amateur frequencies.
I guess if you really need a bullet proof front end you could take the
IF signal out of commercial receiver and insert it into a cheap SAME
receiver's IF chain. Or you could take the discriminator audio from the
commercial receiver into the cheap SAME receiver's detector.
The stock whip antenna on the back of the little midland works just fine
here, but then, the WX station is only six miles away. I think I'd try a
yagi cut to 162 if the signal was weak.
Al, K9SI
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