well, on the technical side, it's certainly far easier these days to manage 
and maintain a repeater as a blind ham.
Most places have commercial shops that will tune the cans for you.  then 
with a modern desktop repeater, availible fairly cheap on ebay by kenwood, 
Icom, vertex etc, it's pretty easy to have it up and running.  With a 
talking tw2 or other similar accessible power/swr meter you can set your 
power output and make sure the swr is within limits.  Programming the 
repeater might be a bit more awkward since I don't know if any of the 
programming software is all that accessible.
That said, many of the ebay sellers are commercial radio stores and will 
often program it for you before shipping it...sometimes for free, sometimes 
for an extra fee.
So if you can get your pair/pairs programmed, with the tones and other 
features you want...like CW ID's, TOT's, curtisy tones, carrier tails etc, 
before it is shipped, you don't have to worry about initial programming.
These newer desktop repeaters are all in one units where you just hook up 
the coax out to the can's/antennas, and everything else is plug and play.

They are specifically designed for the end appliance user that has little to 
no knowledge about repeaters or radios or any of that stuff.
You can still go the old route where you have a separate transmitter and 
receiver and an outboard controller etc.  the problem there of course is 
then you need signal generators to set up the receiver, you need proper 
diagnostic equipment to make sure everything is running properly and so on.
A local ham here, who also owns a business, has been buying VHF and UHF 
repeaters on ebay for around $600 a pop or so.

he gets his cans tuned by another local ham who works in a commercial radio 
shop, and he has a couple repeaters up and running very well.

The biggest issue about a good repeater is antenna location.  If you can't 
get a decent location IE height and placement, then sometimes there is no 
point in even having a machine set up.
And, if it is VHF, a 210c4 array is pretty big...you can run say a tripple 
5/8's wave, but your foot print will be limited compared with a 210c4/210c8.

So, if you've got the cash, and you've got a good location or a tower to 
dump a couple big antennas on, then go for it.


73
Colin, V A6BKX
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "chad morrison" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, April 24, 2011 8:39 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