The way things are going.
I believe that the Illinois Repeater Council has adopted similar guidelines.
Pat, K9JAUAt 02:21 PM 8/28/2004 -0500, you wrote:
>This is from this week's ARRL Letter.
>
>What do you think of it?
>
>K5XU
>
>
>
>==>REPEATER COORDINATOR OKAYS MANDATORY REPEATER TONE POLICY
>
>The Southeast Repeater Association (SERA) Board of Directors has approved
>an "all tone, all the time" policy for the repeaters SERA coordinates.
>SERA provides voluntary frequency coordination for amateur repeaters in
>Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi
>and parts of Virginia and West Virginia. The Board okayed a motion to
>amend its coordination policy and guidelines to require CTCSS or DCS
>receive and transmit tones on all new FM voice repeaters. Existing voice
>repeaters will have until July 1, 2006, to comply. The SERA Repeater
>Journal reported the move in its August issue. Repeater Journal Editor
>Gary Pearce, KN4AQ, said a need to relieve interference complaints led to
>the Board's decision.
>
>"The point is to stop the ongoing complaints and skirmishes between
>co-channel neighbors running carrier-access repeaters," Pearce explained.
>"The vote was unanimous, but SERA recognizes that tone isn't universally
>popular nor is it a cure-all. And it causes new problems, particularly for
>travelers."
>
>South Carolina ARRL member Laurie Sansbury Jr, KV4C, would agree with
>Pearce on that score. He also has taken issue with SERA's new policy and
>with Pearce's Repeater Journal "SquelchTale" editorial, in which Pearce
>said he had "little sympathy for the ham whose radio doesn't have a tone
>encoder" and "Radios are cheap today."
>
>"Not for the senior on a fixed income they're not," Sansbury retorted in
>an e-mail copied to ARRL. "Not for a teenager--the future of ham
>radio--they're not."
>
>ARRL South Carolina Technical Coordinator Marc Tarplee, N4UFP, said he
>believes an important consideration of SERA's tone policy is its potential
>effect on emergency operations. "The Amateur Radio Service is expected to
>provide emergency communications," Tarplee said. "How does broad CTCSS
>implementation enhance or hinder our ability to deliver those
>communications?"
>
>SERA has no plans to automatically decoordinate repeaters that continue to
>operate without tones, but "SERA would not entertain an interference
>complaint from the owner of any repeater who chooses to remain carrier
>access," the Repeater Journal said. If a carrier-access repeater owner
>getting co-channel interference complains to the FCC, SERA would tell the
>Commission that the complaining repeater's owner was opting to operate
>outside the conditions of coordination. "SERA would expect that to be
>interpreted as a 'no,'" the Repeater Journal report said.
>
>"If a repeater owner wants to complain about interference, they'll have to
>incorporate tone first," Pearce said.
>
>
>Mike Duke, K5XU
>American Council of Blind Radio Amateurs
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