Florida hams get grant

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N4GIX

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their paid technicians are being tasked with other things and are not to do work on SARNET on the state dime.

This makes no sense. FDOT owns the equipment installed that bridges the repeaters to the microwave system, aren't their techs responsible for their upkeep? If not them, who?

Personally I'd never allow my repeater to be co-located at a facility to which I had no ready access.
 

MTS2000des

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This makes no sense. FDOT owns the equipment installed that bridges the repeaters to the microwave system, aren't their techs responsible for their upkeep? If not them, who?
The way I read it is your boss tells you what to spend your time on. Where I work, this is common. "We want you do X instead of Y".
Personally I'd never allow my repeater to be co-located at a facility to which I had no ready access.
Good luck finding a site where you can just roll on up whenever you like, but I guess if you contract ATC, Crown Castle, or whoever you can play like that, provided you negotiate that as part of your lease. The majority of amateur equipment owned by clubs and individuals don't have that kind of arrangement, and with management companies taking over rooftops, mountaintops and such, those days of "cutting the grass" for a "do what you want" in-kind lease are becoming a thing of the past in most metropolitan and suburban areas.
 

N4GIX

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The way I read it is your boss tells you what to spend your time on. Where I work, this is common. "We want you do X instead of Y".
Yet it is still *their equipment* and if it fails or starts doing strange things, who's going to fix it?

Good luck finding a site where you can just roll on up whenever you like, but I guess if you contract ATC, Crown Castle, or whoever you can play like that, provided you negotiate that as part of your lease.
In our club's case, we own the 300' tower that's located at the area's Red Cross. We allow the RC to use our tower in exchange for "lot rent". Win-win for both entities. We control access to the building housing the repeater equipment.

My best friend (W9CTO) has three repeaters on a 530' tower he manages for the owner in exchange for the space his equipment uses.

But yes, I do acknowledge that most of the towers in the US are owned/operated by only a handful of large companies and are expensive to rent space from.
 

MTS2000des

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Yet it is still *their equipment* and if it fails or starts doing strange things, who's going to fix it?
That's something they'll have to address when it happens. I don't know how their shop operates. I do know how mine does, and that is that bosses task you and retask you as their needs fit. No telling what those who are directly involved at FDOT deal with and I'm sure they aren't at liberty to publicly air their internal struggles/fights with the ham community, so we'll all just have to wait and see.
In our club's case, we own the 300' tower that's located at the area's Red Cross. We allow the RC to use our tower in exchange for "lot rent". Win-win for both entities. We control access to the building housing the repeater equipment.
Our organization has a similar arrangement. Your and our situation is the exception not the rule, and I feel for the many clubs who have suffered at the hands of these tower companies. Several legacy clubs around here lost their sites due to not having written leases and those companies played hard ball and evicted them.
 

N4DES

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A well built Part 101 system, which is what allows for the connectivity between the repeaters, is the real shining star of SARNET.
If it wasn't for that then all they would be are stand-alone UHF repeaters scattered throughout the state.

The original vision of SARNET was WA4HXZ Henry Felton (SK) about 35 years ago when he was with DOT. But because of the complexities of govt it never got off the ground even though a sample system was fielded. When Henry and I met at PBSO in the early 90's we did a voter system for the West Palm Beach 146.670 repeater on the Sheriff's microwave, with permission of course, which when I learned of his attempted endeavor at DOT to create what is now SARNET. I'm sure he would be pleased to see that it eventually was constructed and is being utilized.
 
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