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