Collin,
I had time to sit with the manual last night and learned a lot about what the CAT-1000 will do. It offers Control Receiver, Link, and Remote Base modes for the 2nd radio port, (DIP switch selectable) each with varying degrees of DTMF control allowed. (The CAT-1000 manual claims to be easy to read/understand, but I beg to differ with that statement to a certain degree! Actually, it’s a great manual, but the CAT-1000 does a lot of stuff and it takes a lot of reading to put it all together.) Anyway, I think I’ve got the physical interface part figured out… pretty simple actually. (I had a career in electronics in the Air Force, so the electronics part isn’t hard to understand.) As I read Part 97, it sound like we’re talking about an Auxiliary Station, regardless of whether it’s a control link or a backbone for a group of linked systems, so (if I’m reading it right) I think my light-bulb is starting to burn a little brighter! I probably need to talk with our coordinating body (SERA) to see what the deal with link frequencies is… if they even care. Ultimately, we want to have the capability (if they allow us) to link with the system up near Macon, which selectively links repeaters during severe weather. We’re only in the ‘can we do this, how do we do this, how much does it cost phase. Unfortunately, we don’t have any real repeater-dudes in the club… just a couple of us who’ve been hams for a very long time with careers in electronics. I guess this proves one thing about ham radio… you can be an extra class ham and STILL not know much about a lot of things! I appreciate the answer… I know a lot of guys from this group are up at Dayton right now… sure wish I was one of them! 73, Mike WM4B From: [email protected] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, May 15, 2008 11:39 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [Repeater-Builder] Control Link Mike, No you are not too stupid to do this. On my Basic controller it is called control receiver. It is there only to control the repeater functions. It can be locked up under several layers of control access. In other words with one DTMF password you could access limited functions and with another DTMF password you could access all functions. This is with a simple controller like I use the ICS basic controller. I am sure you will have alot more control with the CAT. The connections should be similar to what you would have for the repeater receiver. With the basic the control receiver will take priority over the repeater receiver. Your CAT book should give you plain instructions for a control receiver. Hope this helps. Good Luck, Collin -----Original Message----- From: Mike Besemer (WM4B) <[EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:mwbesemer%40cox.net> > To: [email protected] <mailto:Repeater-Builder%40yahoogroups.com> Sent: Thu, 15 May 2008 8:08 pm Subject: [Repeater-Builder] Control Link Greetings all, Please pardon my ignorance, but with the group of experts who hang out on this reflector I’d prefer getting the straight-poop from those who have ‘been-there/done-that’, rather than trying to find the correct answer the old-fashioned way! I’m considering adding a control link to our clubs 2-meter repeater. Currently, we use the phone-line as control link, but it’d be nice to have a second means of control. The controller is a CAT-1000, so I think I can just use the port for the 2nd radio (need to do some more reading in the manual to see what functions are allowed with that setup). Am I barking up the right tree? Any downside to this? Do I need to coordinate the link frequency through our coordinating body (SERA)? Can I eventually use this link to link two repeaters? Am I too stupid to attempt this? Again, pardon me asking prior to doing the research myself, but this place is a wealth of knowledge and with WAY too little time to do everything I’d like to do I sure appreciate everybody’s assistance. Mike WM4B
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