For me, it doesn't make sense to assume that the 45-50 repeaters that were built in Sweden 40 years ago are sufficient. Because 40 years ago there was no DMR, D-Star, C4FM, NXDN, P25, FreeDV and APRS. Those who are not open to new repeaters are hindering radio amateurs from getting to grips with new technologies. Is that what we want? 73, Peter - HB9PJT
Totally disagree with this Coordination groups approach. Turning 2-meters upside down to accommodate nonstandard digital modes makes no sense to me. FM is standard, when it comes to digital there's to many flavors to have anyone of them be the standard. By their own admission they have pairs available on the higher bands like 222 & 440 MHz. IMHO 222 would be an excellent band for narrow modes like digital because it's the smallest band out of 144/222/440. Just my 2 cents........
Narrowbanding of analog radio systems will cause a loss of coverage. The outer fringes of your radio coverage will most likely be affected. Simply put, where you once had coverage now you don’t. This is perhaps, the most negative functional impact of narrowbanding. So, again, why would amateur radio even bother with this? https://www.npstc.org/documents/Narrowbanding101MgtBrief9-080624.pdf
It is a bad idea to promote the idea that in order to be "worthy," a digital mode needs its own wide coverage repeater that can be accessed by all.
In order to be worthy new machines should be required to support more than one digital flavor. The ability to do so has been a thing for 10 years now. If coordination groups can't come up with a real plan besides a way to jam in more repeaters then they should disband like the NFCC did some time back. Jamming more mostly idle repeaters into the bands is not efficient use of the spectrum which is what they are supposed to be promoting. So they are underserving their purpose and overserving their ego. Adopting the notion of narrowbanding something from the commerical sector is stupid at this point. When they did it starting in the 90s and the last phase around 2009, there was intense two way use. Since then most users have transitioned to cellular. This way not every small two way user has to maintain or pay to maintain their own system. Much can be learned from this for ham radio. Promote a system that can used my a number of users instead of every Tom, Dick, & Harry having to do their own.
That's fine but it was a choice that Tom, Dick, and Harry made. Are they willing to kick in the green for the upgrade?
I do not understand what started this thread. Maybe I missed the impending doom announcement. I have not seen anything sayin 2m FM repeaters for Amateur use are being Required to go narrow. As for interference, I noticed years ago that my Yaesu FT1900 was much less bothered by intermod, than an unlocked dual band 2m/440 radio that I had for several years. No I did not "unlock" it; bought it used at a hamfest. Several years ago I purchased a Yaesu Fuzion capable 2m mobile, never enjoyed the slightly robotic voice sound from that optional mode. I know there are many "modes" available now, dstar, Fuzion, etc. I will stick to plain FM 2m in my car. At home HF only. Best 73! K2HAT
I don't think we need any more channels for repeaters this day and age. +90% of repeaters are never used that are still on the air in the US. I personally have shut off six of mine. And very few comments from anyone after they went DOA. There's quite a few other threads about that.
Obviously I am talking about future coordination requests being able to support more than one digital mode. Grandfather what is already out there.
