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Old 3rd Nov 2018, 5:09 pm   #301
M0AFJ, Tim
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Default Re: Users of 2 metre Amateur Band?

Hi Peter, no sorry, I’m screened in that direction. I put some calls out on SSB this afternoon but no reply’s, didn’t hear any CW either, might try this evening.
I’m not a great FMer to be honest, I have a colinear on the chimney but mainly use it for listening to the coastguard!
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Old 3rd Nov 2018, 6:14 pm   #302
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Default Re: Users of 2 metre Amateur Band?

Some quite sad reading here - my first band I operated on when first licensed was 2m, back in 1997.

I did the RAE on my own - just purchased a copy of the handbook, and spent about 3 months reading it again and again, booked my exam at Dunstable College, and took the exam, with two other attendees.

Ive got a shiny new Loop Fed Yagi in the dining room here, purchased early this year, and still not bothered to fit it to the mast - perhaps I will find the time, or weather to encourage me to get it up in time for the Christmas Cumulative contest sessions.

There used to be a lot of 144 Mhz activity in the Stevenage area, but this has died off for a number of reasons, old age has seen a number of regular stations go SK, and changing interests also kills off a lot of activity.

I used to fill a logbook every couple of months when first licensed, I have been at this location for about 17 years now, and have probably had less than 200 contacts from here.

I am primarily a contest operator, and builder/repairer - ragchewing has little interest for me.

Oh, and it was CB that got me interested in Amateur Radio - I had been a very active CB operator for a number of years when at School.

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Old 4th Nov 2018, 1:18 am   #303
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Default Re: Users of 2 metre Amateur Band?

Same here Sean

Most of the G4s that were licenced during the CB boom have dissapeared, there were about 20 or 30 in the local towns but silence reigns most of the time. There are a few locals on in the evenings but little or nothing during the day - unless there is a lift on and we have had a few in the last month or so, worked along to Kent and heard stations in Holland and Ireland but its all gone dead again now.

I work the occasional mobile on the top of a hill somewhere or people with handhelds on holiday but they have mostly gone home now.



Tim

If I get SSB going I will let you know.

Peter
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Old 6th Nov 2018, 11:49 pm   #304
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Default Re: Users of 2 metre Amateur Band?

The 2M local net remains active on GB3HA (Hexham) tonight and was going till around 9PM. Not strictly 2M but I noticed that a 70cms repeater at the same location was listed in the new RSGB call book on 433.300MHz. I have tried monitoring but have heard nothing so far. I was just wondering if anyone has monitored or even accessed this repeater or maybe it is not active yet. I may try to contact the owner to see what the situation is.
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Old 7th Nov 2018, 1:24 am   #305
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Default Re: Users of 2 metre Amateur Band?

I hear (weak) traffic on that frequency from this QTH from time to time and also at times on my regular journey to / from North Yorkshire. I have been puzzled as to why the accents I hear on it are usually outwith this region. Maybe it's internet connected?

Another 70cms repeater worth listening out for in this area is GB3TS (Output 433.175 input 434.775, CTCSS 118.8), formerly situated much further south overlooking Teesside but now (I believe) on a site just west of the A19 near Houghton Le Spring, it's a good signal on Tyneside.
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Old 7th Nov 2018, 10:28 am   #306
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It’s an interesting discussion and one that’s occupied my mind since I was first licenced in 1982. Back then, there was simplex FM and, if you were lucky, a local repeater - my home area didn’t have any 2m repeater coverage for decades. Hence all the FM calling and listening activity was concentrated on just one or two frequencies, and everyone knew where to congregate, and QSOs just happened. Nowadays, there are so many different bands, incompatible modes and repeaters that hardly ever will two stations hear each other! I am now in range of seven repeaters operating variously on FM, D-Star, YSF and DMR but I’m only equipped for two of those modes.

Add the fact that far fewer stations operate /M on a regular basis, and it doesn’t surprise me that the situation has developed as it has. I welcome any move to rekindle interest in simplex on 2m.
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Old 7th Nov 2018, 4:18 pm   #307
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Default Re: Users of 2 metre Amateur Band?

All cables have arrived...my qrv day gets closer. Hopefully this weekend

David (an extant G4 who appeared during, but was not part of, the CB boom)
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Old 7th Nov 2018, 11:12 pm   #308
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Cables connected and terminated. Next job...fit the lot to the stub mast then bolt to rotator and lift into position
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Old 7th Nov 2018, 11:32 pm   #309
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Default Re: Users of 2 metre Amateur Band?

Good stuff on getting back up and running David. I'm glad I did. You are going one better than me by putting up a mast and rotator. I just put a pair horizontal and a vertical dipoles in the loft for 2m and seem to work well at the mo until I get the trees pruned and I can do similar.

Last night I managed to work 5 stations on 2mSSB in 30 mins as part if the monthly contest. Considering my compromised aerials and my issue with the PA in my TR-9000, I'm quite happy

Just wish there was more activity on 2m SSB.

Don't do repeaters, my gear is too old for the CTCSS and narrow deviation.
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Old 7th Nov 2018, 11:40 pm   #310
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The deviation issue doesn't seem to be as bad as you might expect, I have several radios which are pre-narrow-era and don't have switchable wide / narrow deviation like my slightly later Yaesu FT90R and FT-60R do, but their deviation is obviously set quite conservatively.

I seem to be able to squeeze through the narrower receivers of today's repeaters without conking out on speech peaks... unless of course everyone is just too polite to tell me how bad I sound.

CTCSS, though, yes, that is a bit of a problem. I've never actually looked into whether repeaters which are CTCSS equipped only need to hear a correct tone to get them 'up', and then can be kept up by stations who are not equipped with CTCSS as long as they don't let it time out. I would have thought they would usually only stay 'up' as long as they continue to detect the correct tone on the input.

CTCSS wasn't a terrible idea, the idea was that an operator living on the 'border' between two repeaters on the same frequency could choose to operate only one of them by selecting the correct CTCSS tone, in the old 1750Hz toneburst days an operator in a good, high up location or operating under lift conditions could find themselves firing up and working through two or more repeaters and not even realising it.

Last edited by SiriusHardware; 7th Nov 2018 at 11:46 pm.
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Old 8th Nov 2018, 12:38 am   #311
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Default Re: Users of 2 metre Amateur Band?

Quote:
Originally Posted by SiriusHardware View Post
...an operator in a good, high up location or operating under lift conditions could find themselves firing up and working through two or more repeaters and not even realising it.
Although that's the usual reason given for why CTCSS was introduced, how many times did that happen in reality? Maybe a handful of stations benefited from it on a handful of occasions, but on the other hand, the vast majority of mobile operators were instantly inconvenienced, and a whole generation of perfectly serviceable gear was rendered obsolete at a stroke.

Repeaters were designed for mobile and portable operators who, by definition, were restricted in terms of power and antenna size. Sadly an awful lot of repeater use came from fixed stations. It is sometimes argued that the presence of a local repeater acts as a disincentive to amateur stations to erect proper antennas and engineer a decent station.

Please don't think I'm knocking repeaters, I'm not - I like them and use them regularly from the car, and I'm a paid-up member and supporter of three repeater groups - but I never saw the need for CTCSS and I still don't. CTCSS started off being allocated geographically, which made sense, but it soon seemed to degenerate into a free-for-all. It just makes it less likely that a mobile amateur travelling through a new area will be able to find and use any repeaters in range.
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Old 8th Nov 2018, 12:42 am   #312
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Default Re: Users of 2 metre Amateur Band?

"an operator in a good, high up location or operating under lift conditions could find themselves firing up and working through two or more repeaters and not even realising it."
Happened often but deliberately decades ago on RB10, using a beam. Some Peterborough repeater (GB3PE) regular users sometimes took delight winding up the GB3DY users also on RB10. HOWEVER, Peterborough wasn't much above sea level!
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Old 8th Nov 2018, 12:52 am   #313
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Default Re: Users of 2 metre Amateur Band?

So are you suggesting that CTCSS was introduced to prevent such deliberate contraventions of the licence conditions, rather than having to pursue the perpetrators and revoke their licences?
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Old 8th Nov 2018, 1:40 am   #314
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I think I agreed, earlier in the thread, that CTCSS is a great impediment to being able to answer a call being made through a repeater when travelling through a strange area. I would not even try, while driving, to delve through the radio menus to step through the various CTCSS tones until I get a 'hit'.

The situation with individual operators unintentionally firing up more than one repeater was not uncommon, but mostly happened under lift conditions and could cause great confusion if the the operator (for example) called through local repeater A but also accessed distant repeater B. Users listening to 'B would call him back, unaware that all he could hear was his much stronger local repeater.

CTCSS allocated by region was a reasonable choice of solution to stop that from happening but I agree that the penalty in terms of loss of ease of use and equipment rendered unsuitable was high. The situation now is that using a repeater can never really be an unpremeditated act, whereas before it was perfectly possible to make a spontaneous call back to an operator calling through an unknown/ unidentified repeater.

Of course the repeaters do send their CTCSS identification letter suffixes, but who among us remembers exactly which letter equates to which CTCSS tone? And even if we do, same problem as before, we would have to divert excessive attention to trying to dial up the correct CTCSS tone in the radio's menus while driving.

As I suggested before it would be useful if a radio could be set to capture any CTCSS tone it heard on a given frequency and adopt that same tone for TX until the frequency / channel was changed or until a different CTCSS tone was heard on the same frequency. That would then make it possible to spontaneously answer a call heard through an unknown repeater without placing too much overload on the driver / operator.
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Old 8th Nov 2018, 10:37 am   #315
Peter.N.
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In the olden days I used to be able to get into the Dover repeater when it was on the Southern TV aerial mast, but it was on the same frequency as the Bournemouth one so not much chance of working it. Now we have tone access I can't work it anyway, I can just about hear it but but very weak, its on the same frequency as East Grinstead which I can hear. I could work into Crystal Palace but of course that's no longer on the TV mast either.

Peter
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Old 8th Nov 2018, 6:01 pm   #316
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Default Re: Users of 2 metre Amateur Band?

CTCSS...don't get me started. Biggest mistake ever perpetrated by amateurs. It killed the common use of repeaters in one fell swoop and should be reversed!


David
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Old 8th Nov 2018, 10:54 pm   #317
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Default Re: Users of 2 metre Amateur Band?

And killed off the use of ex PMR sets for repeater access, unless you were lucky enough to possess one of the rare units fitted with a CTCSS board. I have only one PMR rig that came with CTCSS fitted, a Key KM150H. The later PMR sets such as the MC Micro had the facility as standard, but a lot of the cheaply available ones didn't. To get round the issue of sub audible tone repeater access, I have the local repeater channels programmed in memories along with the appropriate tone, and as I only generally travel round the north region of the country this works well, but of course if you are travelling further afield it becomes much more of a problem. I can see why it was implemented, and I had already met CTCSS through systems where I worked, so it seemed like a natural progression. All of our repeaters had tone access, and remembering back to the days of "open" PMR repeaters combined with rain static or lift conditions, or worse still a CB radio fitted with a spurious amplifier parked right under the tower, tone access was a definite improvement.
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Old 8th Nov 2018, 11:24 pm   #318
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Does anyone know (off hand) whether CTCSS equipped amateur repeaters transmit their designated CTCSS tone onwards? Logic suggests that they should, when 'up' and actively retransmitting a valid input signal, but maybe do not when transmitting their regular ID (so you can choose whether to hear the regular idents or not, by enabling or disabling 'tone squelch' in your CTCSS enabled amateur radio).

We used CTCSS in 'reverse' to solve a problem on a countrywide VHF system where each area had one high mounted base station and hundreds of outlying outstations. When there was a tropo lift on it would cause major problems because the base stations could then hear each other and, due to a weakness in the signalling protocol, start interpreting each other's transmissions as alarms from their local outstations. To prevent this but allow the outstations (which did not have CTCSS) to work, each base transmitter was equipped with an outgoing CTCSS TX tone and a receive CTCSS detector which MUTED the incoming audio if there was a CTCSS tone on the incoming signal.

At the time I had never heard of CTCSS and remember saying to the radio tech who was doing it, "...what, you are deliberately superimposing hum on the outgoing signal? It took me a while longer to learn that radios which are CTCSS-aware shave off the audio below about 250Hz before passing it on to the receive audio amp.

That's another problem with CTCSS and older amateur radios - many old sets have a receive audio response reaching all the way down to 50Hz, and why would they not?
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Old 9th Nov 2018, 12:36 am   #319
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Default Re: Users of 2 metre Amateur Band?

Forgot to mention, for the 'TED X' selcall / CTCSS control panel sometimes found on Pye MX290 series radios, I made a replacement EPROM which made the panel function as an amateur specific CTCSS / 1750Hz tone sender with the tones displayed on the 4-digit LCD (1750 / 67_A / 71_B / 77_C) etc, with tone toggled on / off by a simple button push.

There was another amateur who took customisation of the TED X much further and included channel selection, etc, but my original eprom 'mod' is an easy way to add amateur specific CTCSS to a basic 16/32 channel MX290 series radio if you have a TED X lying about. I still have the code somewhere.
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Old 9th Nov 2018, 8:16 am   #320
G4YVM David
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Default Re: Users of 2 metre Amateur Band?

Is there any reason why the ctcss system could not be dropped? The bitter irony of a system which prevents multiple repeater access is that it has been superceded by a digital cluster system which specifically forces multiple access because there are so few repeater users now.

I do think the time has come to drop ctcss.

D
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