The Repeater Builder Group

Welcome to the Repeater Builder Group Information Page
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What it is:
The "repeater-builder@groups.io" is a large (over 5500 members world wide) free technical mailing list / web group available to people seeking information on building and maintaining amateur or commercial repeater or remote base systems.   Upon going to website of this group, you may be required to register as a user.   You will also be given some choices in message delivery...

How it works:
If you subscribe in the email message mode and you or someone else posts a message to the list, it is immediately sent to the others on the list within a few minutes.   If others are on their computer, an immediate response is likely.   If you are subscribed in Daily Digest Mode, you won't see the post until several others have been made and a bulk mailing occurs once a day.   If you are subscribed in Web Only mode, the server is updated immediately and hitting reload or refresh will allow you to stay on top of things.

Email mode is the most popular because one on one or roundtable discussions happen frequently, usually in the local evenings.   Local, you say?   Yes, this group is world wide.   Also, in email message mode, the advertisements have been removed as the owner of the list has opted to pay the fee to have them removed.

If your subscription is in Daily Digest mode it will send you one large email message once a day, each containing 24 hours worth of mailing list messages.

Who the group is for:
Discussion of repeaters, systems, duplexers, antennas, feedlines, controllers, remote base, linking, concepts, theory, terminology, practices, experiences, and humor is encouraged.   Anyone who owns or uses a repeater (amateur, commercial (business), public safety, etc.) is welcome to join.

Do's and Don'ts:

Allowed:

• Any repeater, point-to-point link or remote base technology related messages
• "Where can I find X ???" messages - as long as they are repeater related...

  If you are a business owner, a reponse to a "where can I find X" question saying "I can provide that - contact me off-list at (email address or phone number)" is perfectly fine... however a weekly posting of your entire product line is a little extreme. And if you include a phone number please consider time zones and include when to call... something like "during normal east coast business hours" works.

• Personal "For Sale" items are allowed, just keep the items repeater related.   Postings of "I just put a (brief item description) on eBay, item number is (a 12 digit number), shipping will be from central Pennsylvania" is okay, however, it's generally considered best to post a message offering your items for sale at a fair price to the group a few days before sending them to eBay for auction.
        Please limit the For Sale and ebay postings to twice a week or less.
• Occasional off topic messages are expected, just put an "OT - " or "Off Topic - " on the front of the subject line...

Not allowed:

• Discussion of the FCC Rules
• ARRL bashing
• Proper repeater usage
• Motorola versus General Electric, or any other Brand X versus Brand Y arguments
• Personal attacks
• Political discussion
• Disruptive discussions - or those that morph into one.
• Postings asking where to acquire Motorola RSS/CPS (i.e. copyrighted radio programming software), or similar software from other manufacturers with similar policies.
However, asking about a feature inside radio programming software that you already have is perfectly fine.
One example: "I just acquired a M44GMC GM300 mobile that is showing an Error (some number) when I try to program it. What is that error, what causes it and how do I fix it?"
Or another example: Asking "I'm trying to program a new-to-me Kenwood TK-7180K VHF mobile. This is my first commerical Kenwood and the programming software came with the radio. Where in the KPG-89D software is the field where I can specify the power-up channel? I have the first 6 channels programmed as simplex, and then the repeaters from channel 7 upwards. I'd like to have the radio power up on channel 7"

The above is not to say you cannot compare Brand X vs Brand Y features, or give your opinion of a certain brand or feature, just don't compare it religiously against another (i.e. MICOR vs. MASTR II).   The intent here is to learn and to help each other and to solve problems, and a flamewar accomplishes nothing.

When replying to questions posted on the list, be thorough and don't hurriedly reply just to be the first.   Try to quote the pertinent parts of the message so people don't get lost, especially people that join the list in the middle of a long back-and-forth discussion.   If you are reading the messages in daily digest format PLEASE read the rest of the daily digest (in case someone else has already answered the question with the same information you would be providing), then if not, quote just the one message you are replying to (not the entire daily digest).

Again,  Discussion / arguments of FCC rules and the ARRL are not acceptable on this list.   There are other lists that allow this type of discussion.

One last note... Most of the mailing list members are in the USA and are used to the USA amateur radio repeater environment where repeaters are legal from 28 MHz through 1296 MHz. The most common repeater offsets are:

• There are four repeater pairs in the USA 10 meter / 28-30 MHz band: 29.620, 29.640, 29.660, 29.680 and use -100 KHz offset.
• The 6 meter / 52-54 MHz repeaters use different offsets, 500 and 600 KHz are common, as is 1 MHz.
• The 2 meter / 144-148 MHz repeaters usually use a 600 KHz offset.
• The 220 MHz repeaters (actually 222-225) use -1.6 MHz offset.
• The 440-450 MHz repeaters are 5 MHz offset like their commercial bretheren in the 450-470 MHz area.
  Some areas are -offset where the repeater receivers are in 440-445, transmitters are in 445-450, referred to by many as "in-low, out-high")
  Other areas are +offset where where the repeater receivers are in 445-450 and the transmitters are in 440-445, referred to as "in-high, out-low")
  The USA commercial and business repeaters are in two segments, one from 450 to 460, the other from 460 to 470.
  Some areas have additional repeaters in 470-512 with a 3 MHz offset. All commercial and business repeaters are in-high, out-low.
• The 900 MHz repeaters use a -25 MHz offset.
• The 1200 MHz repeaters use a -12 MHz offset.

If you have questions about this mailing list or the contects of this page please email them directly to Kevin Custer, the group owner: kuggie ++at++ kuggie ++dot++ com with a subject line topic of the Repeater Builder IO Group.

This group is owned by Kevin Custer W3KKC
Additional moderation is provided by several others.

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