[aprssig] Doubling APRS messaging in ham radio overnight

[Wes Johnston, AI4PX]

Not to get too far off subject, but sure, "paging" is a one way
comunication, but "sending tones to open the squelch of a radio monitored by
a licensed ham operator to establish communications" is what the real issue
is.  Obviously, it's how you present the question.

What gets me is the old fogeys who don't like running data on repeaters...
even though the repeater doesn't send a PL tone during data events.  They
still complain about hearing data... well gosh, here's an idea, turn your PL
decoder on.  They come back with "not all hams have radios with PL decode,
and we have to accomodate them".  Bunch of luddites!  </soapbox>
Wes


On 2009-01-26, Ben Jackson <bbj at innismir.net> wrote:
>
>
> On 1/26/2009, "Earl Needham" <needhame1 at plateautel.net> wrote:
>
> >Ben Jackson wrote:
> >> Older, working pagers are a dime a dozen on the used market and there
> are
> >> some people who have refitted them to work on Amateur bands[2]. With the
> >> fact that there (quite literally) buckets full of working pagers at
> >> HamFests, why not have a "messagegate" that takes APRS messages to
> >> stations and translates them to a message destined for a POCSAG
> >> compatible pager. There were certain KAM TNCs that could encode POCSAG
> >> natively
> >>
> >
> >    Years ago I had a pager converted to receive on 146.76, our local
> >repeater.  We had a new controller that would send paging tones to open
> >it up.  Sadly, after about 3 uses, the "old fogeys" decided it was
> >illegal.  We had quite the discussion, and one of them finally called
> >the FCC monitoring office in Powder Springs, Ga, and simply asked
> >them,"Paging isn't legal on amateur frequencies, is it?"
>
> This *is* a concern and I'm curious as to how the FCC looks at paging
> for amateur stations by amateur stations. The only real "paging
> network" I've seen is based in Germany. Nothing on this side of the
> Atlantic.
>
> I'm sure there are people smarter then me on this list. Any opinions on
> this? Part 97 is murky at best.
>
> >    If you try this, be prepared for other "old fogeys" to step in and
> >try to take the fun our of amateur radio.
>
> Fogeys don't need to be old :). Every project needs to be championed by
> someone who can tilt at windmills. The next step was to call the FCC and
> the ARRL to get their interpretation of the tomes. Paging in this sense
> may be something that is not supported under Part 97, which is part of
> the reason I haven't tried to really push this (other reasons being
> time and money). I just decided to toss it out there in this thread
> partially to get input from other people regarding it.
>
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-- 
Wes
---
It may be necessary temporarily to accept a lesser evil, but one must never
label a necessary evil as good.
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