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SERA Wants All Repeaters Toned!

Discussion in 'Amateur Radio News' started by N4FV, Aug 28, 2004.

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  1. K3UD

    K3UD Guest

    Sam,

    Thanks so much for the info and the link.


    73
    George
    K3UD
     
  2. K4MFD

    K4MFD Ham Member QRZ Page

    I have regrettably learned that Andy Masters, NU5O the Tennessee SERA director has indicated that he will not serve as the Tennessee SERA director the next term when his term expires this year. I have the utmost parse for his courage to standup and hold his position of support for the repeater operators in Tennessee and he has done everything possible to settle this situation. Andy has proposed to the Board of Directors to rescind this policy on mandatory tones, allow more input from all repeater owners and issue an apology to the Amateur community. This motion so far as I know was defeated by the SERA board of directors. I personally think the actions taken by SERA board members and the actions, that they are still standing by despite pleas from Andy, other board members and repeater operators that they are supposedly serving has gone beyond help now and will not be forgotten. There have been no official response from the SERA president or it's board on this very import and hot topic. I am sure they will blast ARSET for it's efforts to try to support the repeater operators as a group. I don't expect anything less based on the responses I have already gotten. To Andy Masters, NU5O, I say thanks from all the repeaters operators in Tennessee.

    Sam Snyder, WM4T ARSET
     
  3. K4MFD

    K4MFD Ham Member QRZ Page

    South Eastern Repeater Association Rescinds Controversial Repeater Tone Policy


    NEWINGTON, CT, Oct 15, 2004--The SouthEastern Repeater Association (SERA) Board of Directors has rescinded a controversial policy that would have amended SERA's coordination policy and guidelines to require CTCSS or DCS receive and transmit tones on all new FM voice repeaters.

    http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2004/10/15/4/?nc=1
     
  4. KA6FJR

    KA6FJR Ham Member QRZ Page

    I am retired from a federal agency and job where I had an HT on my belt constantly.  I worked for the U.S. Forest Service in four western states.  All of our repeaters were tone access, with PL on the input.  The natural resource agencies in California agreed to 8 standard tones, more recently adopting a standard 16 for repeater access.  Nationwide this 8 tone standard was adopted.  The southern California National Forests had PL on the output and it was standardized to one tone, 103.5 or Tone 8 in the standard plan.  Interference from illegal use in Mexico was the reason.  As Forests have replaced their radio systems in the last 18 to 24 months to comply with the 1/1/2005 narrowband requirement, they are placing the input tone on the output also.  With 500 or more channels in the new radios, instead of using a tone switch, the radios are programmed to display alphanumerics of the repeater being received and there is a channnel for each repeater.  This has the added benefit of significantly reducing intermod around computers and especially the overwhelming interference around cash registers when we are purchasing materials at hardware stores and other retail outlets.  Sometimes electronic devices other than cash registers and often cable TV coax will cause interference all over the store and parking lot that causes the user to turn off the radio, not a good situation when you are a first response resource.  This requires an engine, for example, to allow one person into the store, who may have to turn down or turn off the radio, while the remainder of the crew stays with the engine outside at a distant location, free from interference, to monitor the radio.  When a call comes in they must then signal a member of the crew, standing outside the store, with the air horn and lights, to run in and get the person inside.  If you were a so called single resource, without a crew, you could not do this and the alternatives did not work very well.  Now you can see why most public service radio systems have a tone on the output.  

    In some areas, especially rural ones, all the local agencies on VHF-High have adopted standardized tones for each electronic site using these same 8 or 16 tones. In that way the radio users could get on any radio system and know that for example, tone three always accessed a particular electronic site. User friendly and dummy proof is what we called it.

    The radios used in wildland fire radios still contain a feature for selectable tone use, so non-local units can access all the repeaters with just one frequency pair programmed into it.  They just don't get the benefits of the output being tone guarded.      

    Recently the NIFC National Support Radio Cache, (National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, ID) which is used for all kinds of large incidents, not just for wildland fire, has equipped the command portable repeaters with tone access for 4 tones due to Mexican interference and to enable incidents within reception distance of each other to reuse the same frequencies.  Member agencies within the National Wildfire Coordinating Group oversee the selection of tones and standardizing them across the nation for federal, state, and local wildland fire agencies.  The number of tones is then reduced and problems with radios all over the nation being used on large disasters are reduced because everyone is on the same page.  There are a large number of diverse agencies involved in wildland fire and other fire service involved disasters.  If it can be done for large disasters where large numbers of radios are used from all over the country coming together on short notice, why can't hams do the same?

    As a ham when I visit retail stores or are in a messy RF environment I often set up my cross band or extender mode on the mobile, where I have the link frequencies toned on Tx and Rx.  It enables me to work a repeater without all the noise.  In doing so I cannot scan for other repeaters, nor can I switch the frequency of the mobile, but at least I don't have to listen to the garbage.

    In the Sierra Nevada where I live I often hike to high ridges and peaks and love to work the most distant repeaters I can.  Quite often, because one or more repeaters on the same frequency are not toned, I cannot pick and choose which repeater I'm getting into.  So hams on a closer repeater without tones will often answer me, when I wish them to just listen so I can work the distant repeater.  

    Given all this I don't understand why all repeaters are not toned on the input.  70% of the repeaters in CA and NV are.  Going further I don't understand why very few repeaters have a tone on the output.  It reduces the noise we are more frequently encountering and helps us figure out which repeater we are "DXing".  In many local areas repeaters use the same encode tone.  If we put our heads together we could come up with regional plans to use the same encode and decode tones for a given area and accomplish what the fire service has done.  We would reduce the number of tones needed and then programming would involve less use of channels.  In my CA/NV/AZ program for my mobile and handheld I am now forced to resuse repeater pairs, quite often 4 or more times, because of different tones.  Yes, I can quickly push a couple of buttons and turn a dial and use a different tone, but it is not safe when you are driving.  Without coordination this could be a greater problem.  I sometimes think I would like to wire in an external tone box to my 4 year old Yaesu mobile, so I could use more channels by not repeating the same pair over and over in the radio, but they only work for encode.  We could reduce many of these problems and the issues raised by many previous posters if we coordinated tone use by regions.  Commercial and public service radio has been doing this for 25 years, why can't we?
     
  5. N5JLJ

    N5JLJ Ham Member QRZ Page

    Repeater Tones

    Has anyone ever thought to LOOK at a repeater directory when traveling? They list all co-ordinated repeaters, tones, input, etc..

    I have several repeaters on the air, and have used tone access on them for years. They are welcome for anyone to use, and NO, it's not to exclude anyone, but rather a better way to control the repeater itself. Matter of fact DCS is better than CTCSS as far as detecting the signal, but enough of you have a problem with a simple PL encode as it is.

    If you have a rig thats old enough not to have CTCSS, and/or DCS, then a sinple tone encoder is easy enough to add as I'm sure you're not traveling the country with it anyway, but rather as a simple monitor.

    Last time I looked at the calender, it was still 2008, and yes, radios are full of bells and whistles, including PL.

    For those that refuse to learn how to program a simple thing like this, then, maybe you're better off on another mode (11 Meters?).

    Thats my 2 cents worth.
     
  6. K5GHS

    K5GHS Ham Member QRZ Page

    All I have to say is.....

    None of you better ever come near California.

    There have been requirements like this for years here, because we have so many repeaters you can't get a slot for years.

    Course, many of them barely see any use.

    But, its never been a problem for me regarding tone. As long as I can remember, tone has been required to access any machine around here.

    They may have rescinded it, but I'm betting any interference complaints will require mitigation by the 2 repeaters involved, and tone will be one of those solutions.

    You may not like it, but the bottom line is, it does work, and does allow more repeaters to use a specific pair.

    I don't own a repeater myself, but I have in excess of 50 programmed into a radio for N. CA and parts of Nevada. I believe there is only one in there minus a tone input, and a good many of them use encode/decode now.

    The reality is, the more people cry for wanting pairs, the more the coordination council will have to do its best to accomodate them, or prove they cannot. Sounds to me like it would have been an easier solution.

    But oh well. Just be glad that you don't live here. They check pairs for activity around here too, by the way, and if you're not on the air you just may lose your coordination also :)
     
  7. KG4RUL

    KG4RUL Ham Member QRZ Page

    Berkeley County, South Carolina has a long standing repeater installation that has never had a PL tone. In fact, the repeater controller is so simple, and I might add reliable, it cannot decode a PL tone. We have no plans to link this site with any other repeaters and have no incentive at all to change this dead reliable setup.

    My response to SERA on this issue would be to encourage them to uncoordinate all the vanity repeaters that are rarely if at all utilized along with the many "paper" repeaters on their roster. Doing this would free up many repeater pairs and provide a place for useful repeaters to be operated.
     
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