> The CAP is going from wideband FM to narrowband FM in > a few months, We are exploring the Idea of using the old > GE master II machine on 155.160 and crossbanding it with > the new Motorola quantar Narrowband machine.freq pair for > interoperability.
Which is such a joke... not for the technical reasons of narrow banding but in the fact the various Agencies are forced to change long time legacy systems don't seem to know how to narrow band a current repeater... and if current is not on a bean counter magic list of approved new equipment it gets trashed. Not to mention all the current radios "seem to become un-usable" in the new narrow band system (because few people seem to know how to make a current radio operate narrow band) and fewer people seem to have the monies to "upgrade to an approved radio" just for the single new service. But what the heck... as a Kenwood Dealer I'm selling a modest number of new dual function (wide/narrow capacity at the same time) radios to the few agencies with real money to spend. Very few of the smaller & rural volunteer groups seem get real help by the forced narrow band operation. Well... I set up a repeater for an agency with 4 options. One wideband input is converted to narrow band tx. The standard narrow band input is through the machine. Another current operation is full wideband through and a last option is narrow in to wideband out... all easily user selected with ctcss. The system works well now and will work well when the mandate kicks in. Also keep in mind that most all narrow/wide bets are off in a true emergency. It takes longer to explain the Gov Narrow Banding Cluster Mandate to the admin powers in charge of a volunteer group than it seems worth the trouble. Nor does it seem practical in many/most real-world cases applied upon the non-metro areas of the US. cheers, skipp
