I was the primary control operator for one of our radio club repeaters 
for about 6 years.

I kept one old crystal controlled radio parked on that repeater.

At one point during that time, I was part of a team of repeater 
operators who gathered evidence of bootleg, or unlicensed activity, by 
a local individual. Just as the FCC was about to pounce on the guy, 
other authorities hauled him in for arson, thus separating him from 
his stolen rig for quite a few years.

Fortunately, in my area at least, that type of thing doesn't happen 
often.

Now, I am a secondary control op for two repeaters in our area.

That basically means that I monitor those machines, and apply 
appropriate control codes when necessary.

Usually, that only means assisting someone if they need help bringing 
up a link, making sure the link is dropped after a certain time of 
inactivity, notifying the owners of problems or equipment failures, 
etc.

Owning a repeater as an individual can be a bit expensive, especially 
if you have to pay for antenna maintenance, which now days usually 
means by bonded and certified tower crews, etc.

I've never taken the ownership plunge, but I came close to doing so 
when I was living in my home town in the mid 1980s.

The installation economics caused me to back off on that project.

I could have put it on from my house, but I was aiming for a location 
with enough range to expand normal simplex coverage in my area.



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "chad morrison" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, April 24, 2011 9:39 AM
Subject: managing a repeater


Hello, I was wondering to myself the other day if it would be possible 
=
for a blind person to manage a amateur radio repeater.  Then I thought 
=
to myself why not just ask.  So, here it goes.  Do any of you know if 
it =
would be possible and have any of you done so in the past or are doing 
=
so now?  I don't see why not but as of right now I don't know a whole 
=
lot about it at this point.  However, I have always wanted to go on 
this =
adventure and intend on learning more about this in the future.  I 
just =
wanted to ask and see if anyone has already done so and would be able 
to =
advise me on the challenges I might face from the blind prospective. 
=20

Thanks guys

Chad
KB9TZR

=20