From: jmaynard@oac.hsc.uth.tmc.edu (Jay Maynard)
Newsgroups: rec.radio.amateur.policy
Subject: Re: Closed repeaters
Date: 5 Jan 1993 18:05:59 GMT
Organization: UT Health Science Center Houston

In article <1993Jan5.165651.28417@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov> laborde@oak.Jpl.Nasa.Gov (Gregory R. LaBorde) writes:
>The problem is, all the other lanes are blocked by other peoples' parked 
>Porsches as well, and there are very few open lanes left. 

Only on that one freeway. There are other freeways that go from the same place
to the same place, and that are wide open.

>>Fortunately, the FCC disagrees with you.
>Actually, I think the FCC prohibits exclusive "ownership" of a frequency pair.
>They agree that you don't have to let someone else use your EQUIPMENT if you
>don't want to. 

The problem is that this leads to interference, and forcing someone to accept
interference to his repeater violates the agreement that let the ham community
tell him where to put it in the first place - "If you put your repeater here,
with these technical limits, we'll keep everyone else away" - and that's the
entire basis for frequency coordination in the first place. Now, we get back
to lawsuits. I still haven't heard anyone volunteer to pick up the legal
expenses for coordinating bodies that try this.

>>Actually, no, they don't. Their license fee goes strictly towards the expenses
>>of processing their license. Nothing more.
>How do you know this? My impression was that broadcasters pay a LOT for their
>license, more than could possibly be required for processing. 

1) The cost of processing is the basis for ALL FCC license fees, by law.
2) Broadcast licenses require tons of paperwork - one application I heard
about recently ran over 500 pages - and that takes a LOT of processing.

>I didn't get this message at all. I thought that Mark was demanding that Jim
>park his Porsche in the garage when he is not using it so that a public bus
>could use the lane. It also seems Mark and others understand that when Jim is
>ready to go somewhere, he has first dibs on the lane (as long as he doesn't
>"run the bus off the road"). 

...but this is the rub: Jim _doesn't_ have "first dibs on the lane" if he has
to wait for the bus to lumber out of the way. You've just damaged, if not
destroyed, the usefulness of his repeater.

>Neither Mark nor most of the other "anti-closed" posters have been advocating
>that all repeaters be made open. It is the FREQUENCY space we are talking about,
>not the machinery.

The two are inseperable.

>If a repeater that can cause so much mayhem is left un-
>protected on a frequency where anyone can access it, then that is just plain
>stupid. At the very least it should be protected by DTMF access. 

That's why they're closed: to protect the repeater, its users, and the users
affected by that repeater's other facilities.

>Again, you seem to be (deliberately?) misunderstanding the messages. It's not
>use of the machine that is the issue, just use of the frequency. 

The two are inseperable.

>Mark isn't advocating it, it's just that the regs allow it and that's the 
>unfortunate truth. Even if the regs did allow exclusive ownership of a 
>frequency pair, there is nothing to prevent some miscreant from doing it. It's
>called jamming and it renders many repeaters here unusable too, even open 
>ones. But guess what, they can't keep it up 24 hours/day so the repeaters are
>eventually usable. 

Why is jamming acceptable if it's in the form of an open repeater and its
partisans jamming a closed repeater, but not if someone jams an open repeater?

>***Note for Tad*** Gee, I didn't need to be an Extra or copy 50 wpm to read
>and understand what these guys were saying. Maybe you should make your posts
>in CW so that only your friends will be able to participate. 

For the record, I disagree with Tad's comment about your experience level and
your qualifications to discuss this issue; indeed, it is vital that new hams
understand the history and legitimacy of closed repeaters, lest wars start
anew.  
-- 
Jay Maynard, EMT-P, K5ZC, PP-ASEL | Never ascribe to malice that which can
jmaynard@oac.hsc.uth.tmc.edu      | adequately be explained by stupidity.
      "Science is all in the public domain, and allows few secrets."
              -- Tom Clancy, _The Sum of all Fears_