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Wes Johnston, AI4PX wrote:
<blockquote cite="mid:a430b16b0910120910n2ce345d8g46fcdad5cfb4d12@mail.gmail.com" type="cite">
<div>Just to throw something playful / constructive out there. I had
an idea a few weeks ago about how to have a digipeater "network" that
has many recievers and one transmitter. This is just a concept so bear
with me.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>1)have one high centrally located digi. Output on 144.39 (or
your local aprs frequency). This site has a 70cm transceiver for
getting data from the yet to be described receiver sites.</div>
<div>2)have several low receiver sites around town. They listen on
144.39 and send all data (KISS frames?) over the 70cm link to the main
site.</div>
<div> </div>
</blockquote>
<br>
You are describing the "classic" architecture of 1960s-1970s land
mobile networks before simulcast and cellular -- a single high-power
transmitter in the middle of town with multiple "satellite" receivers
back-hauled to the TX site with leased telco lines or microwave links.
At the TX site, the multiple receivers were "voted" together, with the
one receiving the signal with the highest signal-to-noise ratio
selected for retransmission. <br>
<br>
This kind of system was implemented when the first porta-luggie and and
handheld radios came out, and users discovered the huge disparity
between the talk-out of high-power base stations and the talk-back of
the low power user units with lousy antennas. (The earlier full-power
vehicle-mounted mobiles and base stations were much more evenly matched
for talk-in vs talk-out.) <br>
<br>
<br>
1) The problem with this kind of scheme is that it is spectrally
HORRIBLY INEFFICIENT. One conversation ties up the channel over an
entire metropolitan area. This is analogous to the classic IMTS "car
phones" that preceded cellular. One base station at the tallest place
in town would occupy a channel for a radius of 30 miles or more for a
single conversation. There were only 8 or 10 channels as I recall,
allowing only that many simultaneous calls in an entire county!<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
By contrast, the following cellular networks intentionally use dozens
(or hundreds) of low-level sites, each with a coverage radius of only a
mile or two. The same RF channel can be re-used numerous times in the
same city or county simultaneously. <br>
<br>
<br>
Consider the difference in capacity on 144.39 in a place like Chicago,
between one digi TX on the Sears Tower (or whatever it is called now)
and dozens of low level digis/igates in the surrounding 'burbs capable
of operating simultaneously. <br>
<br>
<br>
2) You can't repeal the inverse-square law! No matter how much
power the central transmitter uses, there will be shadowed dead spots
with no coverage. As the distance from the TX increases, the incidence
of dead spots and poor coverage will increase faster than the distance,
as the signal strength drops off with the square of the distance.
You will achieve far more reliable coverage with numerous low-level
transmit sites than with one "monster" site. <br>
<br>
<br>
(A possible exception might be areas like Los Angeles or Denver where
mountain ridges at the edge of the populated flatlands tower THOUSANDS
of feet above the users, allowing single sites to have virtually
lossless free-space paths to everyone over a huge area. But this makes
the "hog-the-channel-for-a-single-conversation" problem even worse as
the mountain top sites have a coverage radius of 75-100 miles)<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<hr size="2" width="100%"><br>
--<br>
<br>
Stephen H. Smith wa8lmf (at) aol.com <br>
EchoLink Node: WA8LMF or 14400 [Think bottom of the 2M band]<br>
Skype: WA8LMF<br>
Home Page: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://wa8lmf.net">http://wa8lmf.net</a><br>
<br>
NEW! HF APRS Notes & Guide<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://wa8lmf.net/aprs/HF_APRS_Notes.htm">http://wa8lmf.net/aprs/HF_APRS_Notes.htm</a><br>
<br>
"APRS 101" Explanation of APRS Path Selection & Digipeating <br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://wa8lmf.net/DigiPaths">http://wa8lmf.net/DigiPaths</a> <br>
<br>
Updated "Rev H" APRS <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://wa8lmf.net/aprs">http://wa8lmf.net/aprs</a><br>
Symbols Set for UI-View, <br>
UIpoint and APRSplus:<br>
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