Patent ID: 7830832

Claim:
A distributed voter system for selecting at least one of several signals for transmission, comprising: a plurality of remote receive-only site systems each remote receive-only site system comprising: a first receiver configured for receiving a signal transmitted from a communication device, a first processor configured for determining a quality measure of said received signal, and for producing a transfer signal comprising said received signal and said quality measure; a plurality of network connections connecting each of said plurality of remote receive-only site systems to a common communications network; a receive-and-transmit site system communicatively coupled to said plurality of remote receive-only site systems via said plurality of network connections established absent of intermediary voting equipment, said receive-and-transmit site system comprising a second receiver configured for asynchronously receiving said transfer signals from said plurality of remote receive-only site systems, a second processor configured for storing a first transfer signal having a first quality measure as a selected transfer signal in a storage device, and, if a subsequently-received transfer signal has a quality measure better than said first quality measure, then replacing said first transfer signal with said subsequently-received transfer signal as said selected transfer signal and at least one transmitter configured for transmitting a broadcast signal comprising substantially said received signal of said selected transfer signal.