Looming Part 97 problems

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batdude
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Looming Part 97 problems

Post by batdude »

First and foremost, I am just relaying some information.

It's certainly far from a dead-set conclusion. If you don't have a relevant reply other than "that's dumb" - please keep it to yourself.



PART 97 Ham Radio Service and the Looming Narrowband Mandate

Coming later this year or early next year, Motorola plans to utilize software and/or firmware to inhibit the ability to program 25kHz wideband channels into their radios. This will most likely become standard industry practice and is probably coming from the FCC.

*I DO NOT KNOW IF THERE WILL BE A BAND LIMIT EXCEPTION FOR PART 97 SERVICE*

This is something that some of the "higher ups" that regularly read this board need to address with their Moto reps.

It's entirely POSSIBLE that the entire bandsplit will be locked down into narrow band only as a result of the mandate, without exception.

My fear is that no one with any knowledge is going to let Moto know that Part 97 is not subject to the narrowbanding mandate - and it will simply get overlooked.

As the year progresses, PLEASE READ THE RELEASE NOTES before you load new firmware into your radios - especially around the jan/feb 2011 timeframe.

I won't be the only one that says "told ya so"


doug
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batdude
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Re: Looming Part 97 problems

Post by batdude »

a few things to consider.

Marine VHF - not subject to narrowbanding

Media links - not subject to narrowbanding

i'm sure there are other outliers too
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Re: Looming Part 97 problems

Post by radioinstl »

Motorola and other brand radios are FCC type accepted for the Marine band (80) and to keep that can not narrowband the Marine Channels.

I can state for a fact that the Thales Liberty will only narrowband the channels required to be. (no ham, marine etc) There will also be a flash option for no narrowbanding since there are a number of federal customers that are refusing to narrowband (FBI) and since the Feds fall under NTIA not FCC the feds are not subject to the FCC narrowbanding rules.
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Re: Looming Part 97 problems

Post by N4DES »

We have been discussing this locally among a few of us over the last month or so and have pretty much come to the conclusion that we will have to be very careful over the next year or so when CPS updates are sent out and when we do find that magic version CPS that does it, we will cease to do CPS/Firmware updates from that point forward.

I'm curious to know if they are going to do this for the whole line, to include models such as the soon to be unsupported MTS2000's that I don't think have seen a CPS change since rebanding.

Batdude has a good reccomendation and I for one will converse with those that I know in Plantation.
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Re: Looming Part 97 problems

Post by escomm »

Narrowbanding only applies to radios manufactured or imported after January 1, 2011, so if the radio has been canceled I don't think they'll bother. Current production radios will be affected.

Note that radios that have already been manufactured and imported prior to the cutoff can technically be sold with wideband capabilities. Will be interesting to see how much product the manufacturers put on the shelf to draw it out.
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Re: Looming Part 97 problems

Post by wavetar »

Motorola had seminars dedicated to the narrowbanding challenges at their Vegas roadshow. It's a problem Motorola's been wrestling with, as there are many variables...some of them already mentioned in this thread. Also consider that Canada isn't following suit & enforcing narrowbanding. So who knows, there may very well be 'Canadian' firmware & CPS to allow wide band operation.
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Re: Looming Part 97 problems

Post by Spiffy50 »

I think one important question (at least in my mind) is, why would Motorola care about Part 97 users? They are in the business of manufacturing and selling new radios for Public Safety and business. Not catering to the used Amateur market. I feel that if anyone were to bring this issue up to Motorola, it would be dead in the water for exactly that reason.
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Re: Looming Part 97 problems

Post by ASTROMODAT »

Perhaps such an FCC mandate would be a good thing for Ham operators. Heck,it's 2010, so what are we Hams doing using all of this valuable spectrum with old 25 kHz analog FM technology dating from he 1960's (50 years ago!)?! Maybe such a mandate would force us Hams to "catch up" to the commercial boys, and run P25 narrow band digital. D-Star has not caught fire, and P25 is the locked-in standard for Public Safety and Federal users. IMHO, it might be a good thing if Hams were forced off FM and onto P25.

This is just my opinion and my 2 cents. Your views could very well be different!
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Re: Looming Part 97 problems

Post by MSS-Dave »

Spiffy50 wrote:I think one important question (at least in my mind) is, why would Motorola care about Part 97 users? They are in the business of manufacturing and selling new radios for Public Safety and business. Not catering to the used Amateur market. I feel that if anyone were to bring this issue up to Motorola, it would be dead in the water for exactly that reason.
Think the point Doug is making is if you just blindly follow flashing firmware in your radios, you may find your radio you are using in the Amateur band just got narrowbanded and can't be changed. I'm going to be looking at this closely since I have a APX7000 UHF/7-800 and the firmware updates are coming fast and furious.

Dave
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Re: Looming Part 97 problems

Post by N4DES »

MSS-Dave wrote:
Spiffy50 wrote:I think one important question (at least in my mind) is, why would Motorola care about Part 97 users? They are in the business of manufacturing and selling new radios for Public Safety and business. Not catering to the used Amateur market. I feel that if anyone were to bring this issue up to Motorola, it would be dead in the water for exactly that reason.
Think the point Doug is making is if you just blindly follow flashing firmware in your radios, you may find your radio you are using in the Amateur band just got narrowbanded and can't be changed. I'm going to be looking at this closely since I have a APX7000 UHF/7-800 and the firmware updates are coming fast and furious.

Dave
According to my "internal source", look to the end of this year for the CPS to be changed to remove the wide-band capabilities.
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Re: Looming Part 97 problems

Post by MTS2000des »

what really sucks about this is depot repair. Let's say your send your trusty XTS5000 off to the depot for flat rate and they always do an included HOST/DSP refresh. Even though your read the CPS release notes and say, V15 of Astro 25 CPS deletes wideband capability, what do you then? You can't use your older V14 version to read/write your radio...call Ma Ma and open a ticket and see where it goes?
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Re: Looming Part 97 problems

Post by alex »

KS4VT wrote:According to my "internal source", look to the end of this year for the CPS to be changed to remove the wide-band capabilities.
Here is my understanding of how they are going to handle it:

1) Any radio sold after date X will have the restriction in place as required. They will have some bit in the flashcode that will say "narrowband only!" and your radio will come shipped with that.
2) Any radio sold before date x will have the ability to continue to program narrow and wide band channels.
3) I would probably expect there to be some override just like Gov FPP on the 5K which would remove or eliminate the restriction.

Look at it this way: If they were to roll it in to the firmware that by default you were restricted that would cause a lot of problems for them since technically they sold a radio that had wideband capability by specification. They removed that feature through firmware upgrade therefore changing the product after it had been sold to you. You probably would have a nice bait and switch case. Think of it as buying a HDTV and it works great for 3 years and then they turn off the HD feature and you can only use analog? Yeah, not going to happen.

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Re: Looming Part 97 problems

Post by ASTROMODAT »

Again, I don't see what is so bad about the FCC forcing the hands of Hams. If we Hams were forced to use narrowband P25, then it means all of those ancient FM repeaters would need to come out by some date certian. Maybe the FCC would give us 5 years to implement this change. If you monitor 2M these days, about 90+% of Ham FM repeaters have exteremely little, if no activity whatsoever. Everyone now has a cell phone, and you can call your friends for no additional charge. Even 6 year old kids oftentimes have cell phones, so they can call Mommy from school. Maybe if the FCC forced us Hams to convert from analog FM to digital narrowband P25 by some date certain, it would give us that needed kick in the rear to try something new for once. This might just bring some fresh excitement back into the amateur radio hobby. Kind of like going MELP on HF, rather than sticking with ancient analog SSB (ala 1956) woud be a welcome advancement in our hobby.

Just my 2 cents, and YMMV!

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Re: Looming Part 97 problems

Post by escomm »

I don't want to be harsh but suggesting the FCC mandate P25 for amateur use is pretty silly.

First of all, hams and expensive radios are two mutually exclusive concepts. Second, P25 is not the second coming and it has a number of deficiencies. Third, requiring a specific modulation is pretty much against the whole point of ham radio, one of the primary basis of the hobby is to promote experimentation, forcing everyone to use the same modulation totally goes against it.
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Re: Looming Part 97 problems

Post by ASTROMODAT »

I agree with you for the most part. However, on 2M and 440 MHz, 99.9% of Hams are still using 1957 era FM, though their radios are of a modern design. This way, there is no development of the art, other than maybe 0.1 percent who are using D-Star, a mode that will never catch up to P25. Keep in mind that all Federal LEA's are mandated that they can only buy new radios that are P25 capable. It IS the STANDARD! If Hams are to be successful in keeping their valuable (make that Billions of $'s) of spectrum, continuing to essentially exclusively use ancient analog FM will not impress the FCC that Hams are furthering the science of 2-way RF radio communications. At some point, the vultures will leverage this fact, and that could eventually spell the end of 2M, and/or 440. At least with P25, we'd be keeping up with the commercial users, as opposed to lagging decades behind, an unwise place to be when so many vultures want our spectrum. I do agree that we Hams are cheap, and P25 radios are expensive. However, if Icom would ever decide to change out their CODEC form their proprietary D-Star to P25, they could easily make P25 radios at a somewhat affordable Ham price, and perhaps keep the cool Internet features of D-Star.
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Re: Looming Part 97 problems

Post by N4DES »

Just remember that we are a secondary user on 440. The NTIA would have to elect to give it up for any commercial offerings. 2 Meters on the other hand is open as we are the primary users in between 144 and 148MHz.

I don't think that APCO25 will ever take over the AR spectrum over 50 MHz as there are some items that the seasoned users are used to such as inexpensive linking via IRLP and Echolink.

If any technology takes off in competition with D* going to be is Mototrbo as the IP linking features and call routing are similiar to D* with the ability to to TDMA. Now I'm not a fan of repeater IP linking, but the pro D* guys are all over that on forums like QRZ.com.

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Re: Looming Part 97 problems

Post by ASTROMODAT »

Great points, Mark---I agree.

Larry
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Re: Looming Part 97 problems

Post by rc50won »

For now, other than a short email Mark received from his Motorola contact, everything we know is speculation.

While I share Larry's passion for everything P25, and believe me between Mark, myself, and one other gentleman, we have over a dozen dual mode Quantars in Palm Beach and Broward Counties, P25 is not going to become the defacto HAM standard any time soon. And for under $1k you can get an Icom/Vertex/Kenwood Jap P25 radio.

I go with Mark suggesting MotoTRBO has a chance. It does all the neat IP stuff DStar does (actually even better because you don't need a dedicated PC running LINUX), the equipment is commercial grade, and the cost is the same of less than DStar. And OBTW, the DStar repeaters are pure $2,000 caca.

Hell we have a hard time getting people just to add a PL to a repeater and an even harder time getting users to program their radios to send PL. Pretty sad.

Until this plays itself out I think it is wise to standardize 5k's on 14.01. It appears to be a solid platform and getting everyone in the group to standardize just makes a lot of things easier.

You just know that mother /\/\'s first attempt at doing this is going to be a huge CF. There will be bodies everywhere. Jut my $0.02 worth.

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Re: Looming Part 97 problems

Post by Jason »

Looks like we will be getting at least a small reprieve on this, until Jan 2013:

See the FCC's order below:

http://www.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily ... 9410A1.pdf


Looks as if the manufacture of 25khz gear can now continue right up until the 2013 deadline for 12.5khz
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Re: Looming Part 97 problems

Post by vorndamr »

[quote]
by ASTROMODAT
Again, I don't see what is so bad about the FCC forcing the hands of Hams. If we Hams were forced to use narrowband P25, then it means all of those ancient FM repeaters would need to come out by some date certian. Maybe the FCC would give us 5 years to implement this change. If you monitor 2M these days, about 90+% of Ham FM repeaters have exteremely little, if no activity whatsoever. Everyone now has a cell phone, and you can call your friends for no additional charge. Even 6 year old kids oftentimes have cell phones, so they can call Mommy from school. Maybe if the FCC forced us Hams to convert from analog FM to digital narrowband P25 by some date certain, it would give us that needed kick in the rear to try something new for once. This might just bring some fresh excitement back into the amateur radio hobby. Kind of like going MELP on HF, rather than sticking with ancient analog SSB (ala 1956) woud be a welcome advancement in our hobby.

Just my 2 cents, and YMMV!
LarryASTROMODAT [/quote]

Amateur radios operators on the 2 meter and 70 cm bands could realistically go to narrow banding and open up some addition space for those people that desire to have a repeater but cannot get a coordinated pair of frequencies. It would also satisfy the D Star people that need new pairs for their new radios. But forcing the amateur radio community to a P25 digital standard is just ridicules. The crap doesn't work in the public safety environment and is totally propriety to the manufacturer. One of the reasons I'm not a D Star fan...cool options, but useless to anyone not buying a Icom radio. Motorola is the biggest abuser of this. They say they are following the P25 standards, but in reality you can't get another manufactures radio to work on their system. Their Millions and millions of dollar systems. Our County here in Colorado had a great VHF system in place. Might have been a little better with a couple of new repeater sites. But no we all had to switch to Motorola P25 Digital State Wide system. Already we are having problems with it, go figure. With some forethought my Fire Department kept it's VHF system and will be narrow banding it and improving the site location. Why, US Forest Service and the BLM will always be VHF. National Fire Teams will always be VHF. We interact with them on a daily basis, so it just makes good sense to stick with our VHF system. Not to mention that the new Motorola radios cost about $2500 each as opposed to our Kenwood VHF radios at under $300 each. But you see the FEDs got involved with their money grants and the manufacturer and the dealers sold everybody on a bill of goods that the only way to have interoperability was to go to the 700/800 MHz Digital State Trunking System. No choice on the option of staying VHF. So we spent $100 of thousands of dollars of tax payer money for a system that is porn to failure. Please whatever you do, don't suggest any P25 or any other digital system as a mandate for amateur radio. Rod
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Re: Looming Part 97 problems

Post by motorolo »

ASTROMODAT wrote:I agree with you for the most part. However, on 2M and 440 MHz, 99.9% of Hams are still using 1957 era FM, though their radios are of a modern design. This way, there is no development of the art, other than maybe 0.1 percent who are using D-Star, a mode that will never catch up to P25. Keep in mind that all Federal LEA's are mandated that they can only buy new radios that are P25 capable. It IS the STANDARD! If Hams are to be successful in keeping their valuable (make that Billions of $'s) of spectrum, continuing to essentially exclusively use ancient analog FM will not impress the FCC that Hams are furthering the science of 2-way RF radio communications. At some point, the vultures will leverage this fact, and that could eventually spell the end of 2M, and/or 440. At least with P25, we'd be keeping up with the commercial users, as opposed to lagging decades behind, an unwise place to be when so many vultures want our spectrum. I do agree that we Hams are cheap, and P25 radios are expensive. However, if Icom would ever decide to change out their CODEC form their proprietary D-Star to P25, they could easily make P25 radios at a somewhat affordable Ham price, and perhaps keep the cool Internet features of D-Star.
You make an interesting point here about analog vs. digital and keeping hams ahead of the curve. But really, trading D-Star for P25 is a lot like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic, since both systems have a proprietary codec (IMBE or AMBE) at their core. Not sure what we'd be gaining by switching, really.

Just the other day, I was trying for a simplex contact on UHF, P25 vs. analog. Analog came in 5/9, almost full quieting, completely intelligible, where the P25 transmission just sounded like garbage and static, regardless of the number of attempts. Digital's great, and definitely has its place in ham radio, but I would hate to see it, or narrowbanding, mandated for the service. Just my $.02.
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Re: Looming Part 97 problems

Post by tvsjr »

If your P25 transmission sounded like "static", you have larger issues...
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Re: Looming Part 97 problems

Post by ASTROMODAT »

[/quote] Amateur radios operators on the 2 meter and 70 cm bands could realistically go to narrow banding and open up some addition space for those people that desire to have a repeater but cannot get a coordinated pair of frequencies. Rod[/quote]

I tell you, it drives me absolutely CRAZY, this idea that there are not enough Ham repeater frequency pairs available in most big cities for assigning to new repeater systems!

I live in a large metro area, and we have the typical Ham coordinating committee saying there are no 2M pairs (let alone even 440 MHz pairs) available for Amateur Radio use assignment, as they are all supposedly used up. Bull! I have monitored for almost a year with my PC connected to my Icom scanner, and I live on a hill at over 1,000 Ft AGL, with a very good antenna system (Phelps Dodge Super Stationmaster on top of a 120 Ft tower, with 7/8 inch hardline run to my Icom RX in my den). It is a huge rarity to hear even ONE ham radio FM transmission on many, many of these so-called “assigned” repeater pairs in a period of even a full year. My receiver works just fine, too, thank you very much! I would say that maybe 5% of the assigned 2M Hammy repeaters in my area are at all active with voice traffic. The other 95% are very rarely active, if ever at all, with maybe 80% of these having ZERO transmissions ever occurring.

I plan to purchase a Motorola GTR8000 2M conventional P25 repeater, just as soon as Mother M provides Mixed Mode capability. However, there is currently no good reason for me to do this, because there are supposedly no "available" VHF 2M repeater pairs available for assignment.

The fact is, almost all of the 2M repeaters have become nothing but paper tigers over the course of the past decade or so, as a direct result of cellular. I have no problem with that at all. I LOVE cellular service! But, if a repeater operator/owner is letting his machine stay 100% quiet for a 1+ year period of time, the repeater coordination committee should rescind any such Ham radio repeater assignments and return these frequencies to the available use pool for other Hams wanting to put up a new repeater that will actually be used.

I’d also suggest that so long as no Ham repeater pairs are available in many cities, any coordination involving a Closed repeater should be rescinded, unless the existing Operator opens it up for general use, AND it is actually being used. I will be paying a ton of money for my new GTR8000, not to mention the high cost of the site lease, and it will be an Open machine for any Ham to use, with no dues required or even suggested. Otherwise, why should I expect to have a “right” to use this extremely valuable RF spectrum, for which I have paid nothing?! If I'm not willing to foot the $'s for the capital cost of the repeater's initial acquisition, plus its substantial ongoing site lease costs, I should not put the repeater up. Let someone else do it, and if no one else wants to, then we ought to return the spectrum to the FCC to be assigned to entrepreneurs that will actually make use of this scarce reosurce.

I wish the FCC would step in and outlaw the practice of Amateur repeater councils lording regulatory power over other Hams, and let us go back to how it was in 1970. There was no coordination required at that time, as there were darn few Ham repeaters in operation, other than in the most gigantic cities like LA, NY, Chicago, etc. This way, we might be able to get some new, fresh repeaters running!

Sorry for the rant, and the excessively long post! But, like Benjamin Franklin said, "I would have written a shorter letter, but I didn't have the time."

I’ll go back to sleep now!
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Re: Looming Part 97 problems

Post by 123 »

Dear ASTROMODAT


You bring up a good point about Repeater coordinators. My question to all of you is. Do the Repeater coordinators have real teeth for enforcement at all? It sounds to me that they are just like APCO, NFPA, and ARRL which is a agency that has gained good reputation and backing of high ranking officials to issue "guidelines" in the industry. But does the repeater Council really have fire power to enforce or "require" anything?
Keep the flames to yourself.
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Re: Looming Part 97 problems

Post by 123 »

[quote="vorndamr"][quote]
The crap doesn't work in the public safety environment and is totally propriety to the manufacturer. [quote="vorndamr"][quote]

Not true. TN has a P25 trunking system built by Motorola and has some Tait, and Kenwood P25 trunking radios on the system
Keep the flames to yourself.
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Re: Looming Part 97 problems

Post by N4DES »

123 wrote:Dear ASTROMODAT


You bring up a good point about Repeater coordinators. My question to all of you is. Do the Repeater coordinators have real teeth for enforcement at all? It sounds to me that they are just like APCO, NFPA, and ARRL which is a agency that has gained good reputation and backing of high ranking officials to issue "guidelines" in the industry. But does the repeater Council really have fire power to enforce or "require" anything?
We (repeater coordinators) have ZERO enforcement powers. We do our best to coordinate as volunteers and should there be a conflict that 2 parties can't work out the information is sent to the FCC for their binding decision.
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Re: Looming Part 97 problems

Post by Jim202 »

Unlike many who do not travel around the country, I spend a good deal of time behind the steering
wheel. My radios are programmed up for every trip I take. Each region I go into gets another zone
in my radios. What I find is almost the same as "ASTROMODAT" has said. There are a ton of
repeaters listed that are not on the air.

The repeater coordinators need some sort of check and balance to keep their listings up to date.
If there is a repeater that is not on the air, they need to be informed of it. Then contact the
owner and tell them that they have 30 days to get their repeater back up or they will loose the
coordination. If they complain, then on a case by case basis, the coordination can be removed
or continued with a time limit.

This is not just a single region, but the whole country. Can't speak for the west coast as I rarely
get there. I do not suggest that there are no frequencies available, but at least keep the listings
up to date as to if the repeaters are on the air or not. Those that want to be a paper dream
need to go away.

Jim
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Re: Looming Part 97 problems

Post by motorola_otaku »

I guess it bears repeating that coordination is not required by the FCC to put an amateur repeater on the air. All coordination gives you is the upper hand in an interference dispute.

Many, if not most regional coordination bodies across the US have pairs set aside for non-coordinated use. If you don't want to use one of those, you can go this route:
  • Select a frequency out of the "paper dragon" pool and try to activate its repeater with the listed CTCSS tone from within a mile of its listed location. If you bring up a repeater, move on to another frequency and start over. If not-
  • Monitor that frequency for a month's time and keep detailed logs. If you hear any activity, move on to another frequency and start over. If not-
  • Start firing off certified letters to the trustee's address of record on his call sign asking what the status of his repeater is. If you get a reply, move on to another frequency and start over. If the letters come back as undelivered or you don't get a reply-
  • Forward your monitoring logs and copies of your certified letters on to the regional coordination body with a letter of notification. Then wait for them to release the pair back for re-coordination and hope that the waiting list isn't too long.
Or if all of that sounds like too much work - JUST PUT IT ON THE AIR AND USE IT.
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Re: Looming Part 97 problems

Post by ASTROMODAT »

"Forward your monitoring logs and copies of your certified letters on to the regional coordination body with a letter of notification. Then wait for them to release the pair back for re-coordination and hope that the waiting list isn't too long."

Yup, did just that, many times over the course of the past several years. Falls on deaf ears. It almost seems like political correctness gone bad, but once the coordination council issues a coordination (years ago in the past!), even if you go to all of this work, effort, trouble, time, cost, etc. they do absolutely nothing about it. And the beat goes on...

Yes, I can put up my machine, but without coordination, you wind up receiving the wrath of the coordination committee. At that point, they go bonkers harassing you, which is exactly what all bureaucrats do: Nothing, except to annoy people, which is what they live for. They go after you in such a way that users tend to stay away. I've seen this happen. It sucks.

I wish all of these stupid coordination councils would fold their lame tents and go away. No need for them anymore, since there are maybe 2% of the repeaters actually in use. Most are not only never used anymore, but they have taken them off the air entirely, yet the coordination committee refuses to act.
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Re: Looming Part 97 problems

Post by MTS2000des »

we went through the same thing with SERA (Southeastern Repeater Association) to get our 440 pair. Tons of paper repeaters in Georgia. The repeater that was on the air in ATL on our pair was taken down in 2001, the former owner moved to Texas, and he even sent an email telling us the repeater was now in Mineral Wells, TX. Yet, the folks at SERA told us "we are not in the business of de-coordinating repeaters" and refused to release it. Fine. We contacted Riley Hiollingsworth (this was back in 2003) and he told us to forward all documentation/communication with SERA and the former owner and to go ahead and build out our system. If any problems occur, it would be taken up with at that point.

Shortly after CCing SERA on our communications with the FCC, they issued our coordination. So the "good old boy" politics of part 97 repeater coordinating bodies sometimes comes up. But in the end, it is the FCC that has the final word. Usually contacting them with solid documentation will result in a favorable outcome. It did in our case. Our repeater has been operating interference free (well, at least from other part 97 users) since then.
The views here are my own and do not represent those of anyone else or the company, the boss, his wife, his dog or distant relatives.
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Re: Looming Part 97 problems

Post by N4DES »

Just a few points to cover:

1. You cannot judge a valid coordination held by a operational repeater due to the lack of traffic. As long as it is on the air at its coordinated location and operates as a repeater then it conforms to the rules.

2. If it can be shown that the current trustee does not live in the local area and therfore unable to monitor or control the repeater, event is even operational,then it should be de-coordinated. And even more-so if it isn't operational or if the trustee is no longer alive.

3. Using the FCC is a good thing, but only as a last resort. Make sure that you have all of your paperwork in order and there is no lack of information. As others have posted, you can operate a repeater without a coordination per Part 97, but having it allows you for additional protections.

We (the FRC) was approached by SERA a year or so ago and we voted not to be involved with them at all. We feel the Florida's program is a lot more sound and is one of the best and progressive coordinating bodies in the country.
Last edited by N4DES on Sat Aug 28, 2010 12:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Looming Part 97 problems

Post by N4DES »

MTS2000des wrote:we went through the same thing with SERA (Southeastern Repeater Association) to get our 440 pair. Tons of paper repeaters in Georgia. The repeater that was on the air in ATL on our pair was taken down in 2001, the former owner moved to Texas, and he even sent an email telling us the repeater was now in Mineral Wells, TX. Yet, the folks at SERA told us "we are not in the business of de-coordinating repeaters" and refused to release it. Fine. We contacted Riley Hiollingsworth (this was back in 2003) and he told us to forward all documentation/communication with SERA and the former owner and to go ahead and build out our system. If any problems occur, it would be taken up with at that point.

Shortly after CCing SERA on our communications with the FCC, they issued our coordination. So the "good old boy" politics of part 97 repeater coordinating bodies sometimes comes up. But in the end, it is the FCC that has the final word. Usually contacting them with solid documentation will result in a favorable outcome. It did in our case. Our repeater has been operating interference free (well, at least from other part 97 users) since then.
Pretty amazing story and you shouldn't have gove through all of this. Just the trustee alone moving to TX would of been good enough reason to give the coordination to you. Did the original trustee at least offer to transfer it to you? We have that from time to time in FL and with certain limitations allow it to occur.
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Re: Looming Part 97 problems

Post by MTS2000des »

KS4VT wrote:
MTS2000des wrote:we went through the same thing with SERA (Southeastern Repeater Association) to get our 440 pair. Tons of paper repeaters in Georgia. The repeater that was on the air in ATL on our pair was taken down in 2001, the former owner moved to Texas, and he even sent an email telling us the repeater was now in Mineral Wells, TX. Yet, the folks at SERA told us "we are not in the business of de-coordinating repeaters" and refused to release it. Fine. We contacted Riley Hiollingsworth (this was back in 2003) and he told us to forward all documentation/communication with SERA and the former owner and to go ahead and build out our system. If any problems occur, it would be taken up with at that point.

Shortly after CCing SERA on our communications with the FCC, they issued our coordination. So the "good old boy" politics of part 97 repeater coordinating bodies sometimes comes up. But in the end, it is the FCC that has the final word. Usually contacting them with solid documentation will result in a favorable outcome. It did in our case. Our repeater has been operating interference free (well, at least from other part 97 users) since then.
Pretty amazing story and you shouldn't have gove through all of this. Just the trustee alone moving to TX would of been good enough reason to give the coordination to you. Did the original trustee at least offer to transfer it to you? We have that from time to time in FL and with certain limitations allow it to occur.
We could not transfer it as our repeater is in a different county about 20 miles away from the original repeater. The original owner/trustee did send a letter to SERA relinquishing the pair and SERA still told us to sit and spin and that "we don't decoordinate repeaters". SERA has left a bad taste in many mouths. Their choice to keep their database secret is one of the reasons why. There is a move by one ham in Atlanta to start his own Georgia coordination service. I can understand why. About a good 60 percent of their UHF and 900 pairs are pure paper and have been since I got involved in ham radio in the late 1980's. An example of this is a repeater in Smyrna (my town) on 444.65. It's never existed. The guy who's call is listed says he never built it. Yet SERA says it's a working machine and is holding the pair as occupied. One of many examples.
The views here are my own and do not represent those of anyone else or the company, the boss, his wife, his dog or distant relatives.
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Re: Looming Part 97 problems

Post by Wowbagger »

Co-ordination is not a requirement. I could set up a repeater on 146.85 in my back yard right now, and be perfectly within Part 97 rules - at least until I started interfering with the repeater downtown. At that point, I would be breaking Part 97 if and only if the interference could be shown to be deliberate. The only thing coordination does is that it would allow that downtown, coordinated repeater to say "we have acted to resolve interference by being coordinated, what have YOU done." Since I cannot show that I took "best practices" measures to avoid interference, that becomes evidence of bad faith on my part.

If a frequency is a paper tiger, request coordination from the appropriate entity. If that fails, set up your own repeater. If you start getting interference complaints, resolve them, but if there's no repeater on frequency, then how can you be interfering? At a minimum, it will force somebody to come out of the woodwork and make a complaint, then you know who to work with.

And who knows? There might actually be a repeater there, but it is down (I have a machine in that very state: I need 3000' of hardline to get it back on the air.)
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Re: Looming Part 97 problems

Post by tvsjr »

Wowbagger wrote:I need 3000' of hardline
Three THOUSAND? Holy crap!

Also keep in mind that some repeaters may have strange access requirements... singletone, european burst, MDC ID restrictions, P25 only, etc. Just because one person can't kerchunk it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. I have repeaters this way... in one mode they are very much open - in another, they are "stealth" and you require More Magic to access them.
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Re: Looming Part 97 problems

Post by Wowbagger »

tvsjr wrote:
Wowbagger wrote:I need 3000' of hardline
Three THOUSAND? Holy crap!.
Transmit and receive antenna at about 1300' and 1100', so really 2400', but I was only going for 1 digit of precision.
This is my opinion, not Aeroflex's.

I WILL NOT give you proprietary information. I make too much money to jeopardize my job.

I AM NOT the Service department: You want official info, manuals, service info, parts, calibration, etc., contact Aeroflex directly, please.
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Re: Looming Part 97 problems

Post by kf4sqb »

To whoever is suggesting that Hams be forced to go narrowband, too. Are you planning on buying new radios for me? No? I didn't think so. You may have the money readily available to handle such an event, but I, as with many, many other Hams, don't. I'm going to be hit pretty hard by the useless forced narrowbanding on public safety frequencies as it is. That's already going to be more than I can afford. If I had to "upgrade" all my Ham gear as well, I'd have to let my ticket lapse, and quit being a volunteer firefighter as well, as I would no longer be able to afford the equipment. Must be nice to have all that money to throw away for useless, corporate-fueled frivolity like forced narrowbanding.... :evil:

PS, go ahead and, with a straight face, no crossed fingers, and a clear concience, tell me that narrowbanding isn't being fueled by corporate pressure on the FCC. If you can do it, I really feel sorry for how gullible you are.
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Re: Looming Part 97 problems

Post by ASTROMODAT »

kf4sqb wrote:...suggesting that Hams be forced to go narrowband...
As the FCC continues to notice the horribly inefficient use of our valuable and scarce spectrum resources with 1930's ancient technology analog FM, they may very well mandate that Ham radio also go the route of Federal Gov't radio users: Narrowband digital!

Spectrum is like waterfront: there's just so much of it. Just like folks used to abuse the Earth and its wonderful natural resources until the Gov't stepped in and mandated responsible use (EPA, etc.), so, too, we will likely see the FCC do this to Hams, unless us Hammies get off collective fannies and start employing the use of modern and spectrally efficient techniques, which is NOT analog FM!

Like it or not, P25, here we come!
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Re: Looming Part 97 problems

Post by 123 »

kf4sqb wrote:To whoever is suggesting that Hams be forced to go narrowband, too. Are you planning on buying new radios for me? No? I didn't think so. You may have the money readily available to handle such an event, but I, as with many, many other Hams, don't. I'm going to be hit pretty hard by the useless forced narrowbanding on public safety frequencies as it is. That's already going to be more than I can afford. If I had to "upgrade" all my Ham gear as well, I'd have to let my ticket lapse, and quit being a volunteer firefighter as well, as I would no longer be able to afford the equipment. Must be nice to have all that money to throw away for useless, corporate-fueled frivolity like forced narrowbanding.... :evil:

PS, go ahead and, with a straight face, no crossed fingers, and a clear concience, tell me that narrowbanding isn't being fueled by corporate pressure on the FCC. If you can do it, I really feel sorry for how gullible you are.

Narrowband is
12.5 Khz {Phase 1}
6.25 Khz {Phase 2}

Ham radios have been able to do these for a very long time, I had an Alinco in 1983 that did narrow banding and last time I checked all current production commercial radios already have this ability. All you have to do is reprogram.

So unless you have a vacuum tube radio, you most likely have the ability to narrowband your radio. You just dont know it.
And worst is case you go on eBay and buy a used commercial or ham radio. If you can't afford $100 to continue your hobby then its not much of a hobby is it?
Keep the flames to yourself.
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Re: Looming Part 97 problems

Post by escomm »

Phase II is TDMA, pretty sure you won't be finding any ham radios capable of such modulation.....
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Re: Looming Part 97 problems

Post by 123 »

escomm wrote:Phase II is TDMA, pretty sure you won't be finding any ham radios capable of such modulation.....

When I spoke of "Phase 2" It is in relation to the "narrow band Phase 2" requirements, NOT P25 requirements. You are thinking of "P25 Phase 2" Which is a separate subject.
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Re: Looming Part 97 problems

Post by kf4sqb »

I'm running X9000's (two of them), Systems Sabers (two of them), a 128 channel GE Phoenix, a Regency RH256NB, a Kenwood TK-630H, and a GE Rangr with an S990 control head. If you can replace all those with comparable (read "same capabilities") radios for $100 each, I'd like to see you do it. Its really a moot point anyway, since narrowbanding is a useless gesture. If it were really coming from the FCC (its not, its coming from corporations who have conned the FCC into it), narrowbanding would be nothing more than a token gesture toward a "patch" for a very real problem. Some people like to call narrowbanding a solution to frequency congestion, but its not. That's like putting duct tape over a hole in a high-pressure fuel line on your car, and calling it repaired. If the FCC wants to "repair" congestion, they should do their jobs and police the bands (both Ham and commercial/public safety) and "reclaim" all the unused and/or improperly used assigned frequencies. I know of at least five (without thinking hard) counties locally who have went to 800 trunking in the recent past, but still sit on their old VHF frequencies (6 or 7 repeater pairs and several simplex frequencies, in some cases) that they no longer use or don't use correctly. And I know thats not an isolated situation; I'm sure its going on all over the country. I guess its also like all the 800 trunking hype. "Its interoperable!!!" Before several neighboring counties went to 800, I could've went into any county in the region with one HT and talked to every agency in each county. Now, neighboring counties can't even talk to each other without relying on the old standby VHF. Great interoperability, huh? I can easily see narrowbanding working out the same way.
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Re: Looming Part 97 problems

Post by 123 »

kf4sqb wrote:I'm running X9000's (two of them), Systems Sabers (two of them), a 128 channel GE Phoenix, a Regency RH256NB, a Kenwood TK-630H, and a GE Rangr with an S990 control head. If you can replace all those with comparable (read "same capabilities") radios for $100 each, I'd like to see you do it.
You can buy a ASTRO saber for $125 {And I only searched for 20 seconds} I am sure if you search long enough you can find one cheaper, use the same battery and charger you have from your system sabers and BOOM. You have a narrow band radio with P25, trunking, Display ID, etc all included which is better then the portables you mentioned above. Add a converacom for $25-50 and you have yourself a narrow band mobile with P25, trunking, etc which is again better then the mobiles you mentioned above!

Anything is possible when you put your mind to it and research long enough... Think in negative ways and negative things will come.

End of story.
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Re: Looming Part 97 problems

Post by kf4sqb »

Please re-read my post, especially the part where I said "comparable". I'd like to see (without an amplifier, which =$), a convertacom that will do 110 watts, like my X9000's. By comparable, I mean equipment that have the same (or better) capabilities, like output power, number of channels, scan capabilities, etc.
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Re: Looming Part 97 problems

Post by 123 »

kf4sqb wrote:Please re-read my post, especially the part where I said "comparable". I'd like to see (without an amplifier, which =$), a convertacom that will do 110 watts, like my X9000's. By comparable, I mean equipment that have the same (or better) capabilities, like output power, number of channels, scan capabilities, etc.

The astro saber was a DIRECT comparison to your System sabers and is a big upgrade from what you currently have.

In response to your mobiles:

You can find dozens of 50 watt commercial mobiles that are narrow band capable for $100 or less.

a 5.5 dBi gain antenna will give you over 100 Watts of ERP

The radios are out there, all you have to do is some simple research and you will achieve bigger and better things.

Again, think Negative and you will get negative results.
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Re: Looming Part 97 problems

Post by akardam »

Gentlement, let's keep it civil...
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Re: Looming Part 97 problems

Post by ASTROMODAT »

Someone mentioned P25 Phase II and TDMA with 6.25 kHz digital voice channels. FYI, I recently read that it is now estimated that the standards for P25 Phase II may be approved in roughly 18 months, and that we can expect vendor Phase II equipment about 2 years thereafter. That means at least 3.5 years from now for P25 Phase II gear, so we will not see P25 Phase II TDMA subscriber or infrastructure gear until sometime in 2014! In the meantime, we'll need to stick with P25 Phase I, if at all. Yipes, most of the current radios of a P25 ilk are not compatible for Phase II upgrade, unless you have something like a Motorola APX radio. Ouch, it seems like before we have even converted to P25, the "powers-to-be" have already outmoded the stuff! Geez...

But, the good news is: Imagine the eBay fire sales on some pretty nice P25 Phase I radios in 2014!
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Re: Looming Part 97 problems

Post by Wowbagger »

ASTROMODAT wrote:[...]so we will not see P25 Phase II TDMA subscriber or infrastructure gear until sometime in 2014! [...]Ouch, it seems like before we have even converted to P25, the "powers-to-be" have already outmoded the stuff
Not quite - there is a lot of development work going on on P25-P2 right now, even though the ink's not dry on the standard - what is left is just the "fiddly bits" of the standard, the big chunks (modulation schemes, basic timeslot layout) are pretty well defined. The Motorola F2 protocol is being deployed, and any radio that can do F2 has all the hardware to do P2 - just not the code. In most cases it will be a flash upgrade on the radio.
This is my opinion, not Aeroflex's.

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Re: Looming Part 97 problems

Post by MSS-Dave »

Wowbagger wrote:
tvsjr wrote:
Wowbagger wrote:I need 3000' of hardline
Three THOUSAND? Holy crap!.
Transmit and receive antenna at about 1300' and 1100', so really 2400', but I was only going for 1 digit of precision.

This is where I'm fortunate enough to have 10 years left on my lease for space on a 1000' platform. 30' of 1/2 " works nicely. Sorry Wow, couldn't resist..

Dave



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Re: Looming Part 97 problems

Post by Wowbagger »

MSS-Dave wrote: This is where I'm fortunate enough to have 10 years left on my lease for space on a 1000' platform. 30' of 1/2 " works nicely. Sorry Wow, couldn't resist..
We used to have our gear at 1400', but then somebody (NOT ONE OF US!) stuck his head out of the elevator - "HEY, I CAN SEE MY HOUSE FRO" (snickt) (spurt spurt spurt).

OSHA closed the elevator, and we had to move our gear to a more accessible location.
This is my opinion, not Aeroflex's.

I WILL NOT give you proprietary information. I make too much money to jeopardize my job.

I AM NOT the Service department: You want official info, manuals, service info, parts, calibration, etc., contact Aeroflex directly, please.
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