Frequency repeaters, what are they?

[coachmenguy]

ok forgive my ignorance im new to all this radio stuff, but what are repeaters and what do they do??? what do they look like??? if i had to guess i would say they allow a signal to travel twice as far, but thats a guess.

 

[gatekeep]

a repeater is a combination of a radio receiver and a radio transmitter that receives a weak or low-level signal and retransmits it at a higher level or higher power, so that the signal can cover longer distances without degradation ... generally ... trunked-repeaters are usually different, though I don't have much experiance with them I couldn't say, I've just used/helped setup/helped maintain conventional repeaters

 

[z96cobra]

A repeater allows someone to transmit on one frequency, and that audio is rebroadcast at a higher power (wattage) over a second frequency. Most handhelds transmit @ 5 watts (ham/police/fire/EMS etc.) and they can only be heard by other users if they are close to each other. With the repeater, the 5w signal is boosted to whatever power is deemed necessary for the area, and more people/stations can pick up that "little 5w signal". That is the extremely simple version!

Roger

 

[coachmenguy]

ha, thanks for the simple version, i get the concept now!!

 

[ryangassxx]

I've always thought that repeaters sort of took all the fun out of it. I mean isn't the thrill of it being able to achieve what you can achieve with your hardware on your table? To use a repeater, why not just make a phone call...

I understand it from a practical standpoint for police or whoever else, but I dont understand hobbiests using repeaters..

 

[car2back]

...I understand it from a practical standpoint for police or whoever else, but I dont understand hobbiests using repeaters..

I think it just adds another faucet to what is amateur radio. I plan on getting my tech license soon, and ham repeaters will allow me to get on the air with just a simple HT. Maybe someday, I'll get my General and try some HF

 

[ampulman]

I've always thought that repeaters sort of took all the fun out of it. I mean isn't the thrill of it being able to achieve what you can achieve with your hardware on your table? To use a repeater, why not just make a phone call...

I understand it from a practical standpoint for police or whoever else, but I dont understand hobbiests using repeaters..

You can still have a little 'fun'. I include the repeater 'input' frequency in my local system. Due to the sometimes cryptic nature of transmissions, by monitoring the input frequency, I'm alerted to happenings in my immediate neighborhood.

Usually, transmissions from out of the neighborhood, will not be heard on the input frequency and will be broadcasted via repeater. Occasionally, but rarely, a 'mid-range' transmission will be a source of noise and will necessitate locking-out the input frequency.

AM

 

[w0fg]

To use a repeater, why not just make a phone call...
I understand it from a practical standpoint for police or whoever else, but I dont understand hobbiests using repeaters..

That's because you're not old enough to remember when there were no cellphones, and how incredibly cool it was to be able to make an autopatch call from a 2M handheld, and to be part of a group building the systems to make that possible.

 

[Napalm]

Because if we all just talked to each other on simplex, where would the fun be??

Have you no sense of adventure or bettering yourself?

 

[902]

I've always thought that repeaters sort of took all the fun out of it. I mean isn't the thrill of it being able to achieve what you can achieve with your hardware on your table? To use a repeater, why not just make a phone call...

I understand it from a practical standpoint for police or whoever else, but I dont understand hobbiests using repeaters..

Well, this is a hidden attribute of communications professionals (and some hobbyists), but there is a great sense of achievement behind building a radio system that is fine tuned and intuitive. It's something like building a car or making performance improvements to take a gas boat and convert it into a high performance machine. You don't get the same performance from something that was slapped together by someone who doesn't know how to optimize a system or doesn't care about the people who use it. I just spent several days making small improvements to a system which has severe issues, both TO and FROM dispatch. In the process, I discovered that squelch thresholds were set severely tight by the vendor who put the equipment in. This was a contributing factor in several situations where portable traffic was not heard at dispatch. A number of little improvements add up.

And, you said it, from the professional side, this is all about providing reliable communications for the users. If there is something to monitor afterwards, this is a side benefit. No responsible communications professional spends money or engineers a public safety system with how well it will be heard on a scanner first and foremost ahead of how it will perform on the street in areas where responders need it.

The funniest thing is when I read a post in the forums that says "I can't hear [some busy radio system] from 50 miles away." To me, that means that the sytem is exactly right, sending energy into places where communications is necessary and not out to places it is not.

And then, there is the sport of assembling antennas, preamps and cavities to get the best reception of distant stuff. I did this when I lived in NJ and could pick up systems from PA or NY or CT on a regular basis, not because they had a big signal, but because I had big antennas with preamps and hardline - all used junk from having been in the radio business - that I could point at them.

There are SO MANY aspects to this hobby. It can be as simple or as complicated as you want.

 

[902]

That's because you're not old enough to remember when there were no cellphones, and how incredibly cool it was to be able to make an autopatch call from a 2M handheld, and to be part of a group building the systems to make that possible.

Wasn't it a rush to punch some buttons and get a dialtone?! I made my first autopatch call on my old KDK 2015R in 1979 and eventually built a 440 repeater that had my very own autopatch. It was "the [stuff]" until about 1996 when competition drove cellular cost way down. Then people stopped using it. About the same time, it became more expensive to maintain the wired telephone line and long distance service. But it was a good run!

Then again, I also had an IMTS phone (and an MTS phone before that... which I ran up a $300 bill on in 1982).

 

[rescuecomm]

I can remember when we hams had the best systems for comms and autopatch. Now we have been left behind by the mega-bucks companies and technology. All of the formerly phone patched repeaters around here are now IRLP linked. They seem to key up, make noise and then shut down again. Amatuer radio needs some new technology like D-star or something like it to give us a leg up on the cell phone/nextel people with out spending a large fortune.

My two cents worth!

Bob

 

[kb2vxa]

Never mind getting a leg up on the cell freaks, we can do anything they can and we do it OUR way like Frank Sinatra. Like the man said there are many aspects of Amateur Radio, VHF FM voice and repeaters are a drop in the ocean, not even an ice cube sitting on the tip of the iceberg.

"All of the formerly phone patched repeaters around here are now IRLP linked. They seem to key up, make noise and then shut down again."

Well duh, if nobody is on the repeater to talk to there's no point keeping the link open. IRLP and Echostink are VoIP, not radio and the biggest waste of time and money Amateur Radio has ever seen. Oh whoopee, everybody linking up around the world seemed like a good idea at first but like the hula hoop was a passing fad lacking the challenge of working DX on HF, the repeaters are now shunned, it's just not radio.

For the benefit of non hams, there is no way to access the telephone network from one of these repeaters. Since the advent of cell phones there has been no need for autopatch so the equipment has been removed. Radio linked repeater systems are still around however, some cover several states and are quite active.

"...to give us a leg up on the cell phone/nextel people with out spending a large fortune."

Therein lies the rub, we do NOT need to duplicate the cell infrastructure which cost them millions in the first place and we're not corporate monoliths doing The Wall Street Shuffle, we're private individuals lacking such enormous financial resources. Cellular service is cheaper than land line for goodness sake, if you want to go that route get a cell phone. On the other hand if you want to play radio, get a RADIO and the world is on your doorstep.