On Jul 19, 2008, at 11:29 PM, Tom wrote: > This is not to minimize Repeater-Builder and other good sites that are > a tremendous resource of information that would be difficult, or > impossible, to obtain in times past; however having the answer to most > every obstacle takes some of the fun and challenge out of the process. > It's almost become a "cookbook" experience.
Anything 30 years old had better be a "cookbook" experience. Good lord. Notice that it's pretty rare for someone to pop up here in 2008 with a question that defies Mike sending a link straight to a well- written, peer-reviewed article on the topic? (When we added mandatory CTCSS to our repeaters a few years back, one of the techs jokingly wanted to title the article for the e-mail newsletter "That 70's Repeater", since we were finally implementing 1970's technology.) > Having to scrounge all > over He??'s half acre for answers to the obstacle at hand was part of > the challenge and resulted in an enormous sense of accomplishment when > the answer finally was found. Yeah it's easy and more sure, but a lot > of the "mystery" is gone. Just my 2cents. If you want that level of mystery, feel free to help document how to properly benchmark and bit-error-rate test a D-STAR repeater. That's where modern technology is at, and still in the portion of the learning curve you long to return to! Or figure out how to link multiple APCO-25 repeaters from various manufacturers with IP networking. Lots of challenges out there for you... analog repeaters are NOT a challenge when properly done anymore. (Yeah, there are things that make us scratch our heads and wonder what's causing them, but at least there's test tools and lots of talent out there to bounce ideas off of.) Oh... and I'm sure Mike, Kevin and Scott would like some articles for RB, when you're done with those above items! (GRIN!) -- Nate Duehr, WY0X [EMAIL PROTECTED]
