BREAKING NEWS FROM ARNEWSLINE: FCC RULES THAT DIGITAL VOICE REPEATERS ARE REPEATERS
 

FCC RULES THAT DIGITAL VOICE REPEATERS ARE REPEATERS

The fcc has ruled that the claim by some owners of digital repeaters and
some frequency coordinators that digital voice repeaters are not actually
repeaters due to the time delay inherent in digital to analog and analog to
digital conversions is erroneous.

In response to a request for a Declaratory Ruling on this issue from the
Northern California Packet Association the FCC says that when a receiver
and transmitter are tied together as a repeater it is a repeater. The
full text of the FCC response to Gary R. Mitchell, President of the
Northern California Packet Association is reprinted below.

ARNewsline will have more on this issue in our next newscast to be released
on Friday, March 27th.

ARNewsline

**

Text of FCC Digital Voice Repeater Decision


Mr. Gary R. Mitchell
President, Northern California Packet Association
P.O. Box K
Sunnyvale, CA 94087

Petition for Declaratory Ruling filed December 5, 2007

Dear Mr. Mitchell:

This is in response to the petition for declaratory ruling that you filed
on December 5, 2007, requesting that the Commission clarify the definition
of a repeater in the amateur service rules. A repeater in the amateur
service is defined as "[a]n amateur station that simultaneously
retransmits
the transmission of another amateur station on a different channel or
channels." You seek clarification of whether the word "simultaneously
" in
the definition refers to the signal information being retransmitted, or to
the fact that the receiver and transmitter must both be active at the same
time while acting on the same signal information.

Section 97.205(b) of the Commission's Rules specifies the bands on which
amateur repeater stations may operate. You state that some amateur radio
operators are operating on bands other than those set forth in Section
97.205(b) with systems that are essentially voice repeater stations, but
that digitize and retransmit the user's voice, on the theory that because
there is a small delay in retransmitting the signal of another amateur
station, the signal is not "simultaneously" retransmitted and,
therefore,
the system is not a repeater.

Prior to 1994, a repeater was defined as "[a]n amateur station
that automatically retransmits the signals of other stations." The
Commission revised the definition in order to clarify that certain
accommodations for message forwarding systems do not apply to other
operating activities such as repeaters and auxiliary stations. The
Commission proposed to define a repeater as "[a]n amateur station that
instantaneously retransmits the transmission of another amateur station on
a different channel or channels," but ultimately replaced
"instantaneously"
with "simultaneously" because commenters noted that there is always a
small
propagation delay through a repeater. As one commenter explained, "The
word ‘simultaneously' in this case means that the repeater is receiving
and
transmitting concurrently, whereas each signal might be slightly displaced
in time between receive and transmit."

To be able to repeat another station's transmission, a repeater must be
able to receive a transmission from another station and retransmit
it. Because the word "simultaneously" in the definition is used to modify
"retransmit," we believe it refers to a repeater station's transmitter
being active when retransmitting the signal received by the repeater
station's receiver from another amateur station. We conclude, therefore,
that "simultaneously" as used in the definition of a repeater refers to
the
receiver and transmitter both being active at the same time.

Accordingly, IT IS ORDERED that, pursuant to Section 4(i) of the
Communications Act of 1934, as amended, 47 U.S.C. § 154(i), and Section
1.2
of the Commission's Rules, 47 C.F.R. § 1.2, the Petition for Declaratory
Ruling filed on December 5, 2007 by Gary R. Mitchell IS GRANTED to the
extent indicated above.

This action is taken under delegated authority pursuant to
Sections 0.131 and 0.331 of the Commission's Rules, 47 C.F.R. §§ 0.131
and
0.331.

FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION



Scot Stone
Deputy Chief, Mobility Division
Wireless Telecommunications Bureau