I realize that this is a huge lift and I probably don’t understand all of the cost and logistics but it would be great to have a large network of analog repeaters. Would be cool to be able to talk to the people I meet here.
If I ever figure out digital, that would be cool too. Probably easier. Too much to learn and only so many hours in a day.
There are some local systems but I’m still figuring out which ones I can actually reach.
Have you played with the PAPA network out in California? I probably should have done that when I visited SoCal last fall but my mind was in other places.
There’s a weekly net in the southeast called, not surprisingly, the Southeast Linked Repeater Net. Wednesday nights it goes through parts of 6 states.
I have, although its members only, so I try not to over stay my guest privileges. It’s one of the only large networks that I can get reliably where I live. I will probably join at some point. They also have DMR, D-STAR and P25 but sadly no C4FM
@N6RJB-Rob love where your head is at. Sadly we don’t have the budget at the moment but I see American Radio Club really getting into some hardware in 2022 - 2023. I’ve even thought about getting all of our members to get a station/repeater combo and building out our own decentralized communication network. We should already have close to enough member per state… @dwightARC for visibility.
I also want us to support some others repeaters (again, budget allowing).
There are so many great applications for this. Thanks for bringing it up. Great thinking.
Papa system is cool. I didn’t realize it was members only but I chatted on the papa system while I was out in Cali once and it was a great time.
I guess we don’t have anything similar in Georgia… ?
No, not at this point. The D-Star repeaters in the Atlanta Area stay linked to 30A and 30B reflectors. I think maybe a couple of DMR “Local” channels may connect, but nothing like this for FM on a regular basis, just Skywarn and the weekly net.
The one nice thing about DMR is that you can have talkgroups that support many users without degradation of the system. Also, you don’t have to have a repeater near you. There are no DMR repeaters near me within 30-plus miles, but with my hotspot, I can talk to specific groups from my DMR handheld, not only in my state or the neighboring state, not only around the country, but also around the world. ARC could literally have our own talkgroup where people could come in and out at any time and give a shout. The only drawback is that DMR is not user-friendly in setting up a radio with a complicated code plug (program for the radio). If you get one piece of data incorrect, the radio essentially acts like a brick. The talkgroup, color code, time slot, frequency, etc., all have to be perfect to work. And that’s only the tip of the iceberg with DMR. That’s not to say something couldn’t be packaged, but it surely could accommodate what you suggested, @N6RJB-Rob.
I agree that as difficult as DMR is, I would probably build something on it given the popularity of the network at this point.
We also have the CalZona network here in San Diego, Imperial County, etc.