And how would we do that when we're still trying to get old farts to get radios that have PL boards in them?
The solution is to eliminate paper repeaters.
Will narrowbanding effect ham radio?
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And how would we do that when we're still trying to get old farts to get radios that have PL boards in them?
The solution is to eliminate paper repeaters.
James_Bond_007
Member
old farts are just finally going to have to stop clinching their wads so tight that their hands are bleeding and get with the 20th century!!!! eliminating paper repeaters as well is a good thing.
reedeb
Member
MAYBE some old farts aint got the money you children have. Social Security don't pass out that much. SOOOOO why don't YOU buy em a new rig [you can start with ME!!!!]
James_Bond_007
Member
nooooooo, a recent study shows the 55 and over crowd has more financial wealth then the younger people in their 20's and 30's. and people clinching their wallets tight is what is contributing massively to the stunted economic bounce back out of this great depression. we are a service and consumption based economy. people don't spend the economy stalls but that is an argument for the tavern.
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Far be it from me to give someone else money advice. However, we have to look at reality. Warning: my view of reality may sound harsh to some people.
You can buy a new 2m handheld transceiver from one of the "Big 3" Japanese radio manufacturers for $120 (Yaesu FT-250R). You can buy a new 2m mobile from that same Big 3 for $150 (Kenwood TM-281A). Either of these radios has CTCSS encode so you can access a PL'd repeater.
If you had set aside $5 a month for just two years, you could buy a brand new handheld with CTCSS encode. Or, if you had set aside $5 a month for 2.5 years, you could buy a brand new mobile with CTCSS encode. And that doesn't count the used market. Just last weekend, I sold a perfectly good Kenwood TM-D700 mobile with 2m/440, CTCSS encode and decode, and APRS for $225.
Repeater trustees have been putting tone access on their repeaters as long as I've been a ham (20 years). Instead of complaining about not being able to afford a radio with CTCSS encode, you could have found a way to buy one by now. This problem of "old farts with radios that don't do PL" could have gone away years ago. It's not like you haven't had enough time to do something about it. Heck, some of you old farts, but certainly not all, burn up way more than $5 a month in cigarettes or beer.
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James_Bond_007
Member
amen!!!!! i don't even touch liquor let alone smokes of any kind.
Back to the topic at hand.....
Most digital (P25, D-Star, MotoTrbo, and the like) is narrowband capable. Most of these do nowmally operate as narrow band - exceptiong to this might be the D-Star HotSpots. Some of this digital is already on the ham bands. Most common to us, is the D-Star stuff that according to Icom techs is 6.25 capable. (Jury is still our on that staement as I have other things to do that is of higher priority.) Most ham radios have problems when it comes to the reciveing of the narrow band signals (12.5 or 6.25). Laymans terms, ham radios are more subject to adjacent frequency interferance from lack of adiguate filters, unlike their commerical brothers.
Commerical equipment has resolved this for 12.5 because of the mandate. Thus tons of old wide band equipment is hitting the streets and EBay. Just be advised one might have a little trouble buying the programing software from Motorola, as the equipment is no longer supported. These radios work great for hams, but not for the bat winged company to provide a little support and expermentation by the ham community.
Ok I am off the soap box.... Second effect of the commerical narrow-banding.....
Congestion in many areas of the country, like northern California's 2m band, is causing a real look at establishing some narrow band frequencies. It obviously adds more repeater space, and encourages an area to experment in narrow band transmissions - both traditional FM and this new fangled digital mode.
Yes, one can use those splinter frequencies (like every 5 kc's), but YES - that will create adjacent channel interferance because of the bandwidth of a signal. It normall wants to use almost all of 15kc. That is why we have established band plans in our local areas to follow. It kind of helps to keep all of us on the same page so we can talk to each other.
.
Most digital (P25, D-Star, MotoTrbo, and the like) is narrowband capable. Most of these do nowmally operate as narrow band - exceptiong to this might be the D-Star HotSpots. Some of this digital is already on the ham bands. Most common to us, is the D-Star stuff that according to Icom techs is 6.25 capable. (Jury is still our on that staement as I have other things to do that is of higher priority.) Most ham radios have problems when it comes to the reciveing of the narrow band signals (12.5 or 6.25). Laymans terms, ham radios are more subject to adjacent frequency interferance from lack of adiguate filters, unlike their commerical brothers.
Commerical equipment has resolved this for 12.5 because of the mandate. Thus tons of old wide band equipment is hitting the streets and EBay. Just be advised one might have a little trouble buying the programing software from Motorola, as the equipment is no longer supported. These radios work great for hams, but not for the bat winged company to provide a little support and expermentation by the ham community.
Ok I am off the soap box.... Second effect of the commerical narrow-banding.....
Congestion in many areas of the country, like northern California's 2m band, is causing a real look at establishing some narrow band frequencies. It obviously adds more repeater space, and encourages an area to experment in narrow band transmissions - both traditional FM and this new fangled digital mode.
Yes, one can use those splinter frequencies (like every 5 kc's), but YES - that will create adjacent channel interferance because of the bandwidth of a signal. It normall wants to use almost all of 15kc. That is why we have established band plans in our local areas to follow. It kind of helps to keep all of us on the same page so we can talk to each other.
.
A new D-star repeater here was issued a .99 split on 2M. I know for a fact the input frequency was being used by some hams for simplex work and had to move to another frequency.
Tim
Tim
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reedeb
Member
Dang it!! I was hoping one of you money bags would buy me a new radio for Christmas. I guess not. [lol]
reedeb
Member
WELL I found out today that Flower Mound 145.230- HAS gone narrowband!! Don't ask me why or how. I was talking to a couple of guys an they said I was scratchy. then asked if I was narrow or wide band [considering Iwas running an old Rad Shack 2 meter it aint narrow band.]
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It seems to me that, for the time being at least, systems that chose to go narrow band might as well go to a closed or private status. Most radios in the hands of hams right now are not capable of narrow band operation, so it is, in effect, a de facto declaration that most radios shouldn't be used to access that particular repeater.
nd5y
Member
I was going to warn reedeb not to automatically believe everything you hear on the radio.
It could have been an OF that thinks 5 kHz is narrowband and 15 kHz is wideband because that's how it was in 1964 or it could have been a a clueless idiot. There are a lot of both in ham radio.
Then I found these:
Texas VHF-FM Society - Narrow Band Information
Texas VHF-FM Society - Narrow Band Information
Interesting.
It could have been an OF that thinks 5 kHz is narrowband and 15 kHz is wideband because that's how it was in 1964 or it could have been a a clueless idiot. There are a lot of both in ham radio.
Then I found these:
Texas VHF-FM Society - Narrow Band Information
Texas VHF-FM Society - Narrow Band Information
Interesting.
reedeb
Member
Thanks for the info. The ONLY thing I think is wrong with this is the fact there are SOOO many paper repeaters in the DFW region all they need to do is check on these dead ones and replace em. If no one puts up a working repeater in say a yr or so pass it on to someone else. If it should go down for a yr or longer they lose the frequency.
Check with the local frequency coordinating group. They probably already have a policy like that in place.
Now, whether or not it's enforced is another matter.
reedeb
Member
I've heard hams talking about them a while back. Apparently they won't do anything about these paper repeaters.[I wonder how many are buddies of theirs] BUT this I guess happens in MOST major metropoliens every one scrambles for repeater freqs and sits back and never does anything with em or runs a repeater for na bit something breaks and it sits there never working. BUT this stupidity gets me thinking narrowbanding on the 145 mg region will help? all it will do is set it up so MORE paper repeaters get on, or TWO side by side will be crossing over each other creating such a mishmash it will be unuseable
Another thing stupid is the repeater I mentioned is a SKYWARN/RACES repeater [or supposed to be] and if they do it on others in that area of freqs are ALSO SKYWARN/RACES repeaters, that will screw it up for a lot of folks who can't afford a rig that narrowbands [sometimes I wonder about Texas mentality].
W2PMX
Member
We had the same concerns when we went from 30kHz to 15kHz. Eventually someone will figure out how to have a full voice channel in 1kHz and someone will raise the same concerns. (Not about paper repeaters.) There's not enough spectrum for a single repeater to take up 60kHz of it (and FM used to). If technology didn't advance, the newest mode would be yelling from the treetops.
There's probably a handful of reasons why the perception exists that they don't do anything. First, you're talking about a volunteer group, so time is at a premium. Then there's the fact that it can be rather contentious, dealing with all the personalities in the local repeater community. They don't all get along. Threaten to revoke a coordination and the coordinee threatens to take the coordinator to court, and so on. It all slows the wheels down to a crawl.
It depends on how it's implemented. Here in Southern California, 15 KHz repeater pairs are interleved and inverted. So, for example, an older 30 KHz channel might be high in/Low out. 15 KHz away is another pair that's low in/high out. So you have repeater inputs 15 KHz away from repeater outputs. It's insanity. There's a belief out there by some guys that going narrow band will resolve that, but it won't. The only way to benefit from narrow banding here is to un-invert every other repeater as part of the process.
I'm a strong advocate of innovation, but innovation isn't just going along with what's happening in the commercial world. One has to take into account what the purpose of the repeater is, and who the user base is. An experimental group wanting to try current or new technologies can put up a narrow band or P25 or Mototurbo repeater, or whatever else they like, and there should be the expectation that not everyone can use it, whether it's closed, private, or just a modulation that's not commonly available to hams at large.
Eventually, I can see narrow banding occuring on a greater scale in the ham bands, but not because we have to. It will happen because the preponderance of equipment available will eventually allow it. Just like when we went from 15 KHz deviation to 5.
And you are talking about the Flower Mound repeater? Flower Mound is on the north side of the border between Denton and Tarrant counties. I have not looked recently, but at best it might (?) be listed as a backup frequency. I know it is not a primary for either county. Both counties have their SKYWARN/RACES organized at the county level.
Where did you find that information?
Found this link by Jay talking about narrow banding his repeater. (never mind, posted in an earlier comment that I failed to open.)
http://www.txvhffm.com/w5gm.shtml
Mike, KE5MC
Where did you find that information?
Found this link by Jay talking about narrow banding his repeater. (never mind, posted in an earlier comment that I failed to open.)
http://www.txvhffm.com/w5gm.shtml
Mike, KE5MC
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What's all the squabbling about? Paper repeaters and old farts go way back and aren't going away any time soon. With paper repeaters the problem is twofold, you have paper pair hogs who keep their nonexistent machines coordinated and coordinating committee members have better things to do than monitor pairs to see if there's actually a repeater there or not. I used to know a hog and one day told him I'll put a repeater on the pair if I want to and there's not a blessed thing you can do about it. The look on his face said he was anything but pleased but not another word, he knew there was no way he could justify himself.
There's another little story about old farts and PL, once upon a time my club's repeater being atop a mountain was rendered useless on a weekly basis and sporadically in between by a club event many miles away. For whatever reason some of their members located on mountains used high power so they clobbered the input and we were forced to listen to them chattering away on our machine. The idea of using PL on our repeater got shot down for months, you guessed it, old farts with tight wallets. So what's preventing you from installing a cheap single tone PL board, you're only on the one repeater anyway? Most complied but there were a few holdouts, that's when necessity became the mother of invention. It's PL or nothing, funny how they shut up and stopped complaining.
There you have simple solutions, just quietly force the issue. Vacant repeater pairs are wide open to the takers and there's not a thing the paper hangers can do about it. If you want to PL the machine go ahead and do it, a PL board won't break the bank at Monte Carlo.
Food for thought, narrow band is a joke. In urban areas there's a repeater glut, we don't need any more. A few miles out of town and you're lucky to find a repeater unless you go kerchunking around, one might be there but there's nobody home. If all else fails try discovering the real Amateur Radio, there's more to life than hanging out on a repeater.
There's another little story about old farts and PL, once upon a time my club's repeater being atop a mountain was rendered useless on a weekly basis and sporadically in between by a club event many miles away. For whatever reason some of their members located on mountains used high power so they clobbered the input and we were forced to listen to them chattering away on our machine. The idea of using PL on our repeater got shot down for months, you guessed it, old farts with tight wallets. So what's preventing you from installing a cheap single tone PL board, you're only on the one repeater anyway? Most complied but there were a few holdouts, that's when necessity became the mother of invention. It's PL or nothing, funny how they shut up and stopped complaining.
There you have simple solutions, just quietly force the issue. Vacant repeater pairs are wide open to the takers and there's not a thing the paper hangers can do about it. If you want to PL the machine go ahead and do it, a PL board won't break the bank at Monte Carlo.
Food for thought, narrow band is a joke. In urban areas there's a repeater glut, we don't need any more. A few miles out of town and you're lucky to find a repeater unless you go kerchunking around, one might be there but there's nobody home. If all else fails try discovering the real Amateur Radio, there's more to life than hanging out on a repeater.
reedeb
Member
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