I agree. There is no evidence that interference is inevitable. Try it, but be willing to pull it on that freq if there is documented interference.
We have had numerous examples of troublesome repeater coordinators across the country over recent years. Offhand I can recall complaints in Texas, Kansas and the Washington/Oregon. Infighting, cronyism and lack of activity have been well documented problems. Most often the refusals to accept/list new repeater applicants for want of open frequencies, are really due to the unwillingness to de-list "paper" repeaters that haven't been active for years. The problem stems from the fact that the FCC has never taken any step to establish formal relations or responsibilities. These councils are entirely self established, with authority by general acceptance/acquiescence, and are truly accountable to no one. I don't expect the FCC is interested in taking on more work, regardless of its' importance or how it is one of their basic responsibilities.
I think one thing that could be done is to create a new coordinating entity if the old one is not working. Get together with like minded repeater owners in that geographical area and form an new council, and start coordinating repeaters. The council should serve the wishes of the repeater owner members, not the other way around. Once a new council is established, notify all the repeater owners in the area that they are invited to join. I don't think there is any FCC rule that says that 2 councils can't serve the same area. A coordinating council should be in the business of saying "yes", unless there is some overriding reason to say "no". If you are the only one on a frequency, and that frequency is adhering to the bandplan, then the coordination should just happen, this should be no mystery.
I think the problem is that if you go through the hassle of putting up a repeater, and try to get it coordinated, you should be offered some protection on that pair. What is likely to happen is that the council will coordinate another repeater on that channel within 30 miles of you, then claim you are interfering with a coordinated repeater. Then you have to move channels again. This could happen even if the band is not occupied, and probably would if you are dealing with a vindictive council. Sometimes it is not easy to change a frequency pair, especially if you are at a site where intermod studies are done, and/or other users need to be notified of frequency changes.
Good point. In that case, prudence would dictate allowing a reasonable amount of time forthe council to respond to a request, and lacking said response--and factually based decision-- then proceed on a clear, unassigned pair of freqs. If the council then decides to assign those freqs, they will be doing so with malicious intent of interference.
FRC mentioned in php as an "Evil Repeater Concil(s)" - maybe there is some substance to that org being a good ole boys operation? http://arsrepeaters.com/Evil_Repeater_Councils.php
Repeater councils serve a valuable volunteer service in coordinating repeater frequencies and preventing interference on LOS . However, that service is not a legal mandate but an attempt for practical coordination. If the link budget and visibility is NOT presented factually and/or the frequencies are PRESENTLY IN USE by other repeaters (to their knowledge) with that visibility, it makes sense to abide by their recommendation. If there is no issue ----presented by the council ---on extant use, then the applicant,IMO, should ignore the recommendation and use the frequencies. Period. That is MO. Of course, I am in a position to pursue and/or defend a formal dispute should it be presented in that circumstance (which has not arisen). It may, someday. Who knows. Others may not be in such a position. One should welcome the logic and fact presented by the council in a timely manner, and ignore the untimely and or unjustified (by fact) conclusions SHOULD THEY ARISE. That's MO, yours may differ, and probably does.
if you are one of there friends .................no problem you will get your frequency or what ever you want.... if you are not there friend you will not get what you need...........that's how it works......in FL...we demand a full investigation on this matters...and the fcc needs to get on this problems to..
Here in Georgia , we are part of SERA, that does our coordinating. We have had interference with some of our two meter repeaters in South Georgia from some in the Florida pan handle , but we found that they emitted a 100 hz tone that made our machines go crazy, we finally removed the 100hz tones from our machines(I was told why that was in there, but I failed to understand why). Florida, for some reason, is not part of SERA, and I do not know what the FCC now does about interference ( the rule was, the coordinated repeater had the priority, the uncoordinated repeater had the burden to remove interference with the coordinated repeater). It has been a gentleman agreement among the Georgia operators to use certain PL tones in an area. For some reason, some are not CTSS, that has been problematic as well.Hams are sitting on a fortune of frequencies, especially in the VHF/UHF region. I am sure there can be something worked out, if the parties will at least get together.
Here is a novel idea. Instead of Bryan moaning to everyone in the whole world about his coordination woes, he contacts all of the people in the state of Florida who own the repeaters and get them to initiate change in the FRC. If there is a problem there, they would be the ones aware of it and able to make the changes necessary. What is more upsetting is that the host of this program let the viewers believe by letting someone that clearly doesn't know saying things like the ARRL should be involved. They have never been involved in repeater coordination outside of publishing a directory from information they received from the coordinators across the nation. Now that the repeater directory for them is in RF Finder hands who accepts crowd sourced information, just getting coordinated to get listed is a moot point and if his repeaters are many hundreds of miles away from the closest co-channel pair, it's hard to understand why this is such a huge issue for him. Shame on Gary for perpetuating a story that he knows isn't true about what the ARRL or NFCC could do for this situation.
