Letters To The Editor re: VE3KSR

Letters to the editor are occasionally received however this month we have two.  Letters to the Editor are always welcome as are supporting or opposing views to anything that is in good taste and is related to our hobby.

ed.    

Received by e-mail from Tedd VE3TJD to the editor@kwarc.org 

[Note: this is also being forwarded to "editor@kwarc.org" for possible inclusion to the KWARC newsletter]

[Also note: PL and CTCSS are the same and can be used interchangeably. PL is a Motorola TM and stands for Private Line, and CTCSS stands for Continuous Tone Coded Squelch System]

I haven't been keeping up on all the voting by the executives whether VE3KSR should get tone or not.

Has this been buried? With all the *crap* on KSR's input lately, can this be revisited?

Last night at about 7PM, local time (Nov 17, 2001), the co-channel (146.970/37) and adjacent-channel (146.96/36) interference was horrible.

Today, Nov 18, 2001, I got up at 6AM to find KSR steadily kurchunking. At 10AM, on-channel interference kept KSR steadily keyed.

When I first got my licence, KSR was spotlighted as one of the BEST VHF repeaters in Ontario. Now consider a 401 commuter driving by Kitchener, and all he hears is "beep--beep-beep-ditty-beep". If it was me, I wouldn't listen either.

I don't understand why this has to go on.

Joe User: "But my radio doesn't have tone encoding?"

Are you serious? 

The only radios out there that don't have this feature are very old commercial rigs, and first generation PLL'd ham radios.

Let me take care of the commercial rigs first. The cost of "rocking" or re-crystaling one of these things is about $50 PER CHANNEL. Crystals are about $15 EACH, and you need 2 (two), one for TX and one for RX. Add shipping and taxes, and you are up to $50 real quick. Now pay a technician to align and check the radio (maybe 30 minutes). This will add another $25 to $50. As far as I can tell, if you can spend $75 (+++) to rock a radio you got for nothin', you can afford the $10 to $20 for a tone encoder.

As for the older ham radios, the same tone encoder above can be installed. Just remember that most of the repeaters within 30 or 40 miles (or more) of Kitchener use the PL of 131.8 Hz. Your "investment" will be worth the money.

Now I get to the issue of:…. "But the TONE BOARD for my radio costs $90 from Kenwood (or Icom, Yaesu, etc)".

Encoding---- Allows a user to ACCESS a repeater, or TRANSMIT the PL (CTCSS) tone, so the repeater will hear you.

Decoding---- Allows a user to set up his radio, so all you HEAR is OUR repeater, and not the noise from paging transmitters, local noise, and anything else that doesn't transmit the PL tone. KSR has been transmitting tone for as long as I can remember :) The tone board from any manufacturer will only add the decoding section (in most cases).

Joe User: "But someone not from this area won't know about the tone?"

Ben (VA3BNY) has a "real cool" voice message module, and for the first couple weeks, he can set it to notify users of the necessary tone needed aggressively (once every 15 minutes), then relax this feature to once every 30 minutes. It doesn't have to be fancy, just something like "VE3KSR now requires a PL of 131.8". 

If Joe User doesn't understand this, make him an appointment to get re-tested.

For Gods sakes people, lets get into the 21st century.

There goes KSR again.....I'm off to 6 meters to enjoy the quiet :)

Tedd Doda, VE3TJD

Another e-mail to the Editor from David Johnson VA3MRJ

At the last Executive meeting, I put forth the discussion to enable tone on KSR, being in favour, but I am not a voting member of the board. A motion was made to add tone to KSR by Vice President Bill. Non voting attendees David Johnson and Paul Cassel spoke in favour, VP Bill and Secretary Ron voted in favour, the Technical Chairman, Ben, abstained from voting. Past President Bob and President Dennis voted against the motion thus it was a tie vote. ( several directors were absent at the meeting). Under KWARC bylaws, in the event of a tie vote, the Presidents gets a second vote to break the tie. President Dennis voted again and defeated the motion.

I suggested we bring it back to the board when we have a full compliment of directors but this was opposed.

KSR is working much better since Ted repaired the CTCSS board, at least now, those of us with decode boards do not have to listen to the I.D. and the intermod but the co-channel interference and kerchunking is mighty irritating, especially since we have the technology already in place to fix it, it just has to be turned on. Thanks to Tedd, John(AMZ) and Paul Cassel for getting rid of the annoying hum that's been on KSR for the past several weeks.

I remain in favour of enabling the tone on KSR and urge the Board of Directors to reconsider this at the next exec meeting.

David S. Johnson
VA3MRJ

Submission are welcome to editor@kwarc.org 

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