Using Crossband Repeaters

Cross-band re­peat­ing in this con­text is the use of an un­at­tended per­son­al radio to act as a relay bet­ween a ham op­erator and the Col­orado Con­nec­tion. This is a fea­ture on many dual band radios. The ham would talk into their radio via UHF and their sign­al would then get re­layed into the Col­orado Con­nec­tion on VHF. Similar­ly, a sign­al from the Col­orado Con­nec­tion on VHF would get re­layed by the per­son­al radio over UHF to the ham op­erator.

While the theo­ry of cross-band re­peat­ing is good, it is easy for some­th­ing to go awry and in doing so, af­fect the en­tire re­peat­er sys­tem. Since such re­peat­ers look just like a re­gular ham op­erator to the Col­orado Con­nec­tion, there is lit­tle we can do to isolate and address a pro­blem other than to dis­able the re­peat­er (if we can) that is being af­fected or just live with the in­ter­fer­ence. Also, it is our callsign that is gett­ing re­peated, so if the re­peat­ing sta­tion isn’t also iden­tify­ing, we’re the tar­get for any que­ries. Re­cent ex­am­ples in­clude bad squelch, a mis­con­figured timeout, un­ex­pected local in­ter­fer­ence and just a bad radio. In­ter­fer­ence has las­ted from hours to (in one par­ticular­ly bad case) months.

As such, much like many other re­peat­er sys­tems, we strong­ly dis­courage cross-band re­peat­ing into our sys­tem. We also acknow­ledge that a major value of this sys­tem is rea­ch­ing places in this state that no other radio ser­vice (cell or ham) can reach. While our co­verage is good, it isn’t every­where, so there are situa­tions where cross-band re­peat­ing is use­ful to tem­porari­ly ex­tend range for a par­ticular situa­tion or event. Rath­er than just an of­fici­al ban on such re­peat­ers, the guidelines below are our way to allow them when needed while en­sur­ing the least li­kelihood of pro­blems and the ab­il­ity to isolate the issue if some­th­ing goes wrong.

Cross-band re­peat­ing is pos­sible if done the fol­low­ing way:

  • Secure per­miss­ion from a board mem­b­er (any will do, if you do not know one, just use the con­tact page and one will get back to you) show­ing the fol­low­ing
  • In­clude the ex­pec­ted loc­a­tion and dura­tion of the in­ten­ded use.
  • En­sure the cross-band re­peat­er it­self is FCC-legal:
    • Your crossband unit must pro­vide Call sta­tion ID (eith­er auto­matic or manu­al)
    • Have the ab­il­ity to shut down the radio re­mote­ly if some­th­ing goes wrong
  • Use of some kind of tone on the link radio input to re­duce in­ter­fer­ence
  • En­sure the sta­tion is being monitored for the dura­tion of the in­ten­ded use.