Saint Lawrence
Valley Repeater Council
Notices, Bulletins and
Notes
This page contains bulletins and other items
of interest particularly
to the members of the Council and other Radio Amateurs in the
general geographic area. Items will be dated, but may still be of
interest or importance in the long term. Please check this page
regularly.
If you have an item you think should be posted here, please send
it along to
Graham Ide - VE3BYT.
Updates to Listings -
Following the extensive
review of data provided by members in 1997 and early 1998, the
listings of systems with coordinated frequencies by Frequency and
by Location have been brought up to date. Also, corrections and
additions have been made to the listings for Northern Ontario,
based on information received from Amateurs in that area. These
listings will be kept current based on new coordination actions
as they are completed, and information received from members and
other Amateurs.
Return to the
List of Items
Revisions
to Frequency Lists -
A number of revisions are needed in the lists on this site of
coordinated frequencies, because of the addition of some new
repeaters, and some changes arising from the review of all
coordinated frequencies that the Council is conducting at this
time. A major overhaul will be done on the lists and they will be
brought in line with Council records when the review is
concluded. In the meantime, readers can refer to the periodic
reports of coordination actions for information on recent
additions to repeater and other systems in the area.
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List of Items
Renewal of
Frequency Coordinations -.
Beginning this year, the Saint Lawrence Valley Repeater Council
will review ALL coordinations issued to date. Licensees and
sponsors of systems with coordinated frequencies will forward
Technical Information to the Council by the end of October. This
information will be reviewed for significant changes from earlier
reports, and coordinations will be renewed, if necessary with
conditions or suggestions. Systems which do not file the
information as specified in SLVRC policy, (you can refer to the
policy on this site) Sections 25 and 26, will have their
coordinated status suspended. After a further period without
response, the coordinations applying to these systems will be
revoked and the frequencies will become available for
reassignment. This action can be appealed within a specified
period. Details have been made available to members of the
Council, and are available to others by Email request to members
of the SLVRC Executive.
This review and renewal process
will be carried out each year by the Saint Lawrence Valley
Repeater Council.
Return to List
of Items.
Radio
Amateurs of Canada request for information on use of the VHF and
higher bands -
RAC, in order to represent the interests of radio amateurs and to
protect the frequency allocations we have, needs to be able to
describe to government agencies and international bodies the
actual uses that radio amateurs make of the VHF, UHF and higher
bands. Commercial interests want to share or take over the
valuable spectrum that we enjoy. Non-ham government and corporate
people do not read TCA or QST, and have little interest in
finding out for themselves what hams are doing.
If you are
involved in or know of experiments, projects and activities on
these bands, please send brief but specific details (including
information on the bands used) to Jim
Dean, RAC Vice-President Government Affairs, Projects and activities that would be
of interest include Terrestrial DX, Moonbounce, Meteor Scatter
propogation, High Rate Digital Communication, Experimental ATV (
analogue or digital ), Propogation Studies, and other such works.
Jim will compile this information and will use it at committee
meetings and conferences to support the retention of amateur
spectrum privileges. Radio Amateurs in Canada and the U.S.A. can
make an important contribution by sending this information to
Jim.
Return to List
of Items.
Public
Service, Safety, and Voice Repeaters -
In urban centres, and in most parts of the SLVRC area, we have a
number of VHF and UHF voice repeaters with good coverage. There
are repeaters covering most major highways, and along waterways
such as the Rideau Canal System, the St. Lawrence River, the
Ottawa River and Lake Ontario. Each has its purpose, for clubs
and associations, for contacting friends, ragchewing, and as
required, for emergency messages. Most of these repeaters are
quiet most of the time except at peak traffic periods in the
morning and afternoon, and in the early evening. But people are
usually monitoring the frequencies. Are they, really? Recent
personal experience leads me to think that we need to make better
provision for emergency messages, to be more certain people
needing help of some kind get a response when a call is made on
an amateur repeater. In Ottawa, at 8:45 AM on a Thursday, I
called on each of two wide-coverage repeaters to have someone
telephone the police, with no response. One of the repeaters has
autopatch, but as I am not a member of the sponsoring club, I
could not use it - and no-one was on the repeater to put a call
through.. Fortunately in this traffic accident there were no
injuries.
It is true
that sometimes when hams are not available to respond to an
emergency call, a spouse or other non-ham is listening, and could
pass a message to fire, police, ambulance or towing service IF
when you call you give specific information on Where you are and
What service you need.
What if a
boat is in trouble, or what if you call to report to police an
accident with injuries, and request an ambulance, AND you get no
answer ? Perhaps you try more than one repeater and still you get
no response. What then ? Should we carry C.B. radios, in the hope
of finding someone in range and awake on one of the 40 channels
?.
Repeaters
have been with us for many years. Many emergency calls have been
put through successfully. But, I think we can do better than our
present situation. It is sometimes difficult to raise an answer
during the day on major repeaters, but at night ? Good luck -
they are DEAD after everyone goes to bed.
Many
repeaters in the U.S.A. and Canada are implementing the Long Tone
Zero system, where a long transmission of Zero on the TT keypad
activates a warning signal to listeners, or opens the audio on
receivers that are monitoring but do not want to listen to the
ordinary traffic.
It seems to
me that if amateurs represent themselves as providing a public
service in emergency situations, we should consider how we can do
it better and more consistently. It is a function we should all
concern ourselves with - don't leave it to those who have joined
emergency service groups to be ready for major disasters.
Licensees and sponsoring organizations of local area repeaters
and some of those with wide coverage in might put in place a
system such as Long Tone Zero, so that a caller would be more
likely to get a response when it is needed. Ideally, enough
repeaters would implement the same system so that the whole area
is reasonably covered for mobile users.
The SLVRC
would appreciate your comments on this issue. What
do you think ? How can
we improve our response in emergencies, in the next 12 months?
Interesting Note: Since I posted this
comment on Public service and Emergencies in 1997,
I can not recall anyone EVER writing to me in response. VE3BYT
- April, 2004.