From: bobw@col.hp.com (Bob Witte)
Newsgroups: rec.radio.amateur.misc
Subject: Re: 430 mhz band under th (now repeater costs)
Date: 31 Dec 1992 21:22:01 GMT
Organization: HP Colorado Springs Division
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: la.col.hp.com

gary@ke4zv.uucp (Gary Coffman) says:

>Repeater councils have developed several ad hoc rules over the years for
>handling frequency coordinations. They boil down to basically, first come,
>first serve, and use it or lose it. But these rules *are* ad hoc and have
>no legal basis in the federal regulations where 97.101(b) says that "No
>frequency will be assigned for the exclusive use of any station." That
>seems pretty clear. Under federal regulations, a repeater council has
>no authority to assign a channel for the exclusive use of any repeater
>station. 
>
  You've described the situation in Colorado. It's "first come" (those who
  were coordinated first way back when) "first served" as long as the
  repeater pair is "used". This puts the burden on the newcomer to move up
  in frequency to a higher band when the often-preferred bands like 144 MHz
  are full. The question then becomes: What does "used" mean?. This gets
  into the issue of "most effective use" and other vague notions.

  By the way, the FCC has made it quite clear that it recognizes the 
  "authority" of repeater councils and that the FCC will favor a coordinated
  repeater in any interference dispute. 

>97.101(b) also says "Each station licensee and each control operator must 
>cooperate in selecting transmitting channels and in making the most effective 
>use of the amateur service frequencies." That also seems pretty clear,
>frequency usage must be on the basis of *most effective use*. That seems
>to paint small closed and private repeaters into a pretty tight corner
>when the spectrum is needed for more effective uses such as an open machine
>that serves a larger user base.
>
  Yep, so the FCC puts the burden on the amateur community to sort this out.
  That's one reason why repeater coordinating bodies exist. Of course, they
  are made of humans and are subject to politics and other humanoid behavior.
  
  As far as "most effective use" is concerned, I hear a can of worms being
  opened. How are we, the amateur community, going to measure Most Effective
  Use? Hours of key down time on a repeater? Number of users signed up as
  members? Number of autopatch calls  :-(  ? Maybe hours of technical 
  discussion on the repeater? Or maybe there's room for Autopatch repeaters,
  ragchew repeaters, ARES repeaters, closed repeaters, ...
 
  Someone else jumped in a few postings back and suggested that a quiet 
  channel was an effective use of the spectrum (I paraphrase a bit here).
  Maybe it is. Maybe having a frequency instantly available for emergency
  or priority communications over a long distance is "most effective use"?

  So we might be able to agree that a closed repeater with two users that
  gets used 2 minutes per month is not the "most effective use" of the freq.
  As you move away from that extreme case (well, extreme for around here,
  I can't speak for California...) things get a bit fuzzier.

  The view of our local coordinating body is that a repeater pair ought 
  to be used for "something". It could be a handle of close buddies, it
  could be a "Ma and Pa repeater", it could be an experimental repeater,
  it could be "closed", it could be "open", but its OK as long as the freq
  gets used.   

 Bob Witte  /  HP Colo Springs  /  bobw@col.hp.com   /  KB0CY   
Newsgroups: rec.radio.amateur.misc