On 1/17/2021 3:44 PM, Ken Hansen wrote:

The story of the failed PA in your local club repeater is interesting
- it sounds like your club invested an amount in repairing one part
of your repeater which could have instead been invested in a new
Yaesu dual-band repeater which handles not only FM but C4FM digital
mode operation

The chief repeater tech and myself as the trustee of the station, both of us with decades of experience in Public Safety fixed and mobile radio, agreed that in no way were we going to use the Yaesu stuff for a mountain-top installation that is accessible only six months of the year. Yaesu's alter-ego in the land-mobile arena, Standard/Vertex, has less than a stellar reputation for quality and serviceability.

I bet your club argued that a) the old repeater was good enough, b)
the repair was mathematically less expensive than the the alternative
new repeater I mentioned, and c) club members had no interest in
supporting a digital repeater.

There was no argument. The only question was "how soon can we get the repeater back on the air". Plug and play is important when the snow is closing in.

I know the benefits. I understand the tech. But I also understand the
momentum in the hobby to stick with what you know.

Over my strenuous objection our ARES group invested in three of the Yaesu $900 dual-mode repeaters (2m, 2m, and 440) only because of their price, not because they had yet another flavor of "digital" that none of the members had, but the old adage of "you get what you pay for" was blithely ignored. They are not on the air yet because of site access lock-down, but they will be replacing three privately-owned repeaters that have come to the end of their lives. I wonder how long they will last before they too will have to be replaced. That will be someone else's problem.

(How many clubs running 220 repeaters have no tone set, because 30
years ago the available 220 radios didn't have PL tone boards?)

Specious argument. Decades ago I used recycled Motracs and Micors without tone boards at my ham station - and Communication Specialties made very nice tone boards that did that job for about $35 bucks if I remember.

Many of us "oldies" fell into the D*Star trap a dozen years ago when it first came out and I don't remember the last time that that system has been used. Fool me once - it's your bad. Fool me twice - it's my bad. It's that simple.

'Nuff Said.

73 de K2ASP - Phil Kane
Beaverton, OR

My point stands - the claim was that hams would sooner than later transition to DMR because it opens up repeater pairs (narrow bandwidth) and DMR radios are cheap. (From memory)

Your club suffered a repeater failure, and rather than embrace the future and swap in a digital (DMR or other) repeater, you doubled-down on your old analog FM repeater.

I contend your decision is repeated throughout the country, keeping older analog wide FM repeaters on the air into the foreseeable future.

There is nothing in your story that contradicts my point.

'Nuff said

Ken