Special Events Guidelines

Col­orado Con­nec­tion Re­peat­ers
Speci­al Event Guidelines

Speci­al Events are oc­casional­ly co­or­dinated via Col­orado Con­nec­tion re­peat­ers. Below are the guidelines we re­quest you fol­low when co­or­dinat­ing a speci­al event on the Col­orado Con­nec­tion.

1) ALL users shall fol­low cer­tain pro­tocols.

Due to the co­verage area of the Col­orado Con­nec­tion, it’s major func­tion is to pro­vide a re­li­able sour­ce for wide area com­munica­tions. At times, speci­al events are co­or­dinated on the Con­nec­tion when co­verage isn’t pos­sible on a single local re­peat­er. For this rea­son it is neces­sa­ry for ALL users to fol­low cer­tain pro­tocols. (Speci­al pro­tocols are de­scribed in sec­tions 4 and 5 below.) This is es­pecial­ly true for groups pro­vid­ing com­munica­tions dur­ing speci­al events.

2) Speci­al event Net Con­trol op­erators MUST make re­gular an­noun­ce­ments stat­ing that AN­YONE wish­ing to make a call may do so by an­nounc­ing their callsign and as­k­ing for a break.

These an­noun­ce­ments should be made at least once every 15 minutes. Break­ing sta­tions shall be acknow­ledged quick­ly and given the op­por­tun­ity to pro­ceed.

3) Speci­al event Net Con­trol op­erators MUST make re­gular an­noun­ce­ments stat­ing the Name and Na­ture of the event.

These an­noun­ce­ments should be made at least once every 15 minutes.

4) Users should wait AT LEAST 2 SECONDS after hear­ing the morse code K be­fore trans­mitt­ing.

Con­nec­tion re­peat­ers link togeth­er via a com­bina­tion of simplex and dup­lex UHF and VHF radio. Electronic con­troll­ers and electro-mechanical link boxes pass the audio bet­ween re­peat­ers and their link trans­ceiv­ers, therefore time must be given for ALL links to TOTAL­LY FORM at the be­ginn­ing of a trans­miss­ion and to TOTAL­LY DROP­bet­ween trans­miss­ions. When this pro­tocol is used, re­peat­er or link timeouts are not be a pro­blem. This also al­lows users of dis­tant re­peat­ers to break-in dur­ing any speci­al event or norm­al con­ver­sa­tion.

Con­nec­tion re­peat­ers will time-out after two minutes of con­stant trans­miss­ion. If the 2 seconds isn’t left for ALL links to com­plete­ly drop, one or more re­peat­ers may time out. The sys­tem will shut­down until the of­fend­ing re­peat­ers have no input sign­al. The sys­tem will reset auto­matical­ly, in­dicated by voice and CW mes­sages. Users may not hear time-out clear mes­sages from every re­peat­er due to the con­troll­er varia­tions and link topology. When your local re­peat­er re­sets, wait AT LEAST 5 SECONDS for the other re­peat­ers on the sys­tem to reset. Some of the dis­tant re­peat­ers may con­tinue to be timed out while the time-out clear mes­sage from other re­peat­ers is sent. Again, users may not hear all the time-out clear mes­sages dur­ing this per­iod. This 5-second quiet per­iod is es­senti­al for all time-out clear mes­sages to pro­pagate throug­hout the sys­tem and all re­peat­ers to com­plete­ly reset.

5) Users must wait AT LEAST 1 SECOND after trans­mitt­ing to begin speak­ing.

It is neces­sa­ry for users to de­press the PTT key for this 1 second be­fore speak­ing to allow all the electro-mechanical and electronic links in the sys­tem to com­plete­ly form. If this is not done the first few words of the trans­miss­ion will not be heard on other re­peat­ers.

6) All FCC rules per­tain­ing to sta­tion iden­tifica­tion should be fol­lowed.

While we re­cogn­ize the need for vari­ous checkpoint names or other nicknames dur­ing speci­al events, don’t for­get that the FCC re­quires that you ident­ify your sta­tion by trans­mitt­ing your callsign at least every ten minutes.

7) It is re­ques­ted that your group or event or­ganiz­ers send Col­orado Con­nec­tion Re­peat­ers, Inc. a lett­er re­cog­niz­ing our con­tribu­tion to the speci­al event.

The Con­nec­tion runs on in­dividu­al dona­tions, but re­gular­ly appl­ies for grants from philanthropic or­ganiza­tions. These or­ganiza­tions re­quest in­for­ma­tion about how we pro­vide pub­lic ser­vice. This lett­er should be mailed to:

Col­orado Con­nec­tion Re­peat­ers, Inc
P.O. Box 22134
De­nv­er, Co. 80222

If you’d like to make a re­quest to con­duct your speci­al event on the Col­orado Con­nec­tion, you may send your re­quest to the above address or Email the Board of Di­rec­tors with your re­quest.

Please in­clude the name of your or­ganiza­tion, or­ganiza­tion address, or­ganiza­tion telep­hone numb­er, prima­ry and secon­da­ry con­tact names and callsigns with their addres­ses and phone numb­ers. In­clude the name and na­ture of the event, start­ing and end­ing times, and the loc­a­tion where the event is to be con­duc­ted.

Thank you in ad­vance for help­ing us to keep the Con­nec­tion runn­ing smooth­ly. We sin­cere­ly hope you have a suc­cess­ful speci­al event.