Dave Platt wrote:
In article ,
Michael Coslo wrote:

I think that this is interesting, but have to say that I'm not sure just
what this means. Are some repeaters treated as something else?

There's been some mention, recently, of the fact that some
coordinating groups have been treating D*Star digital repeaters
differently.

Because of the fact that such repeaters use a packet-based
transmission technology which receives each packet and validates it
before retransmitting it,

I have to do a little studying on the D*star protocol here. I didn't
know that the packets were validated. I had assumed that it would be
similar to say the sort of digital used in audio applications. Bad
assumption on my part.


there are people who feel that such systems
are more like AX.25 "store and forward" packet nodes / digipeaters
than they are like FM-voice repeaters. The fact that D*Star can also
be used to carry some fairly high-bandwidth data seems to contribute
to this feeling, as well.



At first blush, it would seem that a repeater should always be treated
as a repeater.

The NFCC seems to have agreed with you (with some amount of dissent).
Since D*Star systems retransmit the packets (digital-voice, or data)
on a different frequency than the one on which they receive, and tend
to keep the transmitter "hot" for as long as there's incoming receive
data, and are being used to carry a lot of voice traffic, it does seem
reasonable to treat them in a way which is analogous to the way in
which FM repeaters are treated.


The repeaters would have to be treated very carefully. As I read it, a
digital repeater would take up 300 KHZ of space! Yoiks! I would have to
think that these repeaters would be coordinated in the same way a
regulre one would be. It will take some extra care, given the Bandwidth
requirements.

- 73 de Mike KB3EIA -