I.
OPERATIONAL
GUIDELINES.................................................................................2
II.
TRANSMITTING, RECEIVING, and
COURTESY TONES....................................2
A.
Repeater users will yield
according to the priority order:...............................................2
III.
BREAK-IN
PROCEDURES....................................................................................3
IV.
NETS.......................................................................................................................3
V.
JAMMERS................................................................................................................4
VI.
INTERFERENCE FROM OTHER
REPEATERS....................................................4
VII.
POWER..................................................................................................................4
VIII.
LINKED
REPEATERS..........................................................................................4
X.
ADDITIONAL REPEATER
COMMANDS............................................................12
A.
Signal Report
Test....................................................................................................12
B.
DTMF Keypad
Test.................................................................................................12
XI.
APPENDIX A EMERGENCY
CALLS.................................................................13
A.
To place an Emergency call
using the Emergency Autodial.........................................13
- I.
OPERATIONAL GUIDELINES
The best repeater
user is one who respects other users' rights to a pleasant operating
experience. This generally means listening as well as talking. These
guidelines are the accepted repeater operating procedures of the Pentucket
Radio Association (PRA).
Please pay
particular attention to the notes on identifying. Current FCC enforcement
actions have been admonishing amateurs and repeater owners on the use of
tactical call signs without properly identifying with the FCC assigned call
sign at the appropriate time. Our FCC rules are clear; give your call sign
every 10 minutes during the transmission and at the end of the transmission.
The station identification issue is becoming more troubling for the FCC, and
more Violation Notices are being issued. To use the PRA repeater, all radio
stations must be in compliance with FCC rules, and the 'best practices' of
Amateur Radio procedures listed below:
- II.
TRANSMITTING, RECEIVING, and COURTESY TONES
All repeater users
have an obligation to set a proper example for newcomers. Many people are
listening to our repeater including non-hams. What is said and how it is said
affects the reputation of our club. Don't leave a bad impression of our hobby
by making thoughtless or off-color remarks. Strive to give a favorable
impression of our hobby, our club, and yourself.
- A.
Repeater users will yield according to the priority order:
- 1.
Emergency Traffic (including emergency
autopatch calls)
- 2.
Priority Traffic and other traffic of
substance or directions
- 3.
General conversation
Allow time between each transmission so that others
may make themselves heard. This assures that the other person has released
the microphone push-to-talk switch, is no longer transmitting, and allows
a person with an emergency to make it known. Remember, an emergency cannot
wait for your conversation to finish. The courtesy tone generated at the end of a
transmission is created for several purposes:
-
- a.
To indicate to a listener when a
person has ended a transmission.
- b.
To indicate to a listener when a
transmit signal has dropped below squelch level at the repeater receiver.
- c.
To indicate to all listeners that the
repeater may be in a special operation mode.
- d.
To indicate that the Time Out Timer
(three minutes) has reset.
The best procedure to follow when you first turn on
your radio and prior to transmitting is to LISTEN for a few seconds to see
if there is a conversation in progress. There are guidelines for common courtesy for
interrupting a conversation already in progress. If you interrupt a
conversation, it is assumed that you have a desire to join in on the
conversation in progress or that you have more important traffic other
than that of the conversation in progress. If your reason for interrupting
doesn't fall into one of these two categories, then you should not enter
into the conversation. If you feel you cannot wait with your traffic, but
you don't have an emergency, it is considered courteous for you to ask for
permission to make a call by giving your call sign or last portion
thereof, and, after making your contact, move to another frequency with
your conversation. In general, simply use common sense courtesy rules for
normal conversation. After completing your interjection into an existing
conversation, it is common courtesy to thank those that relinquished the
repeater to you.
- III.
BREAK-IN PROCEDURES
If you need to
interrupt a conversation, make sure you do it properly:
For non-emergency situations simply say
your call sign: (ex: W4XYZ)
For priority situations say,
or This is W4XYZ with priority traffic
For emergency situations say "Break,
Break", or This is W4XYZ with emergency traffic
- IV.
NETS
- If a Net is in
progress, no informal or uncontrolled traffic should be initiated without
going through the Net Control Station (NCS). The NCS will open and close the
net with an official announcement declaring that a net is/has been in
operation. This announcement might include a short description of the event
and net operations. This announcement should be repeated by the NCS at regular
intervals during the net. We recommend announcing the nets operation every 30
min. At the close of the net, the NCS should "officially" return the repeater
to normal-operation.
- V.
JAMMERS
All repeaters
experience occasional jamming. We are fortunate to have a high caliber group
of amateurs in the Pentucket Amateur Radio Club and as such do not suffer
malicious jamming very often. The PRA philosophy is to ignore jammers if
possible. If we talk to them or about them we are encouraging them to
continue. To respond to them in any way with anger or negativity is even
worse. Listen to a jammer on the repeater input to get an idea of the signal
strength and, if possible, the direction of the signal. This could be helpful
to those who attempt to locate the jammers signal. The jamming may not be
intentional, and some communications may still be possible on top of the
jamming. The repeater will be
shut down if the jamming results in "illegal" operations, such as
broadcasting, playing music, etc. The decision to shutdown the repeater is
left to any recognized control operator listening. If the repeater is shut
down, then the jammer has been given the recognition and attention they wanted
(i.e., the jamming was successful).
- VI.
INTERFERENCE FROM OTHER REPEATERS
- There are
coordinated repeaters on the same frequency as the PRA repeater.
Occasionally, atmospheric conditions and other propagation factors, commonly
known as skip or tropo will enable you to hear one or more repeaters on
146.625 MHz. The Amateurs you hear on these distant repeaters are NOT
intentionally interfering with the PRA repeater. Please resist the temptation
to act as a repeater policeman. Normally, this propagation is a short-term
event and normal conditions will resume in a brief period of time. The PRA
repeater can be used during occurrences of these phenomena but there may be a
slight heterodyne on the output frequency.
- VII.
POWER
- The FCC rules state
that we can only use the power necessary to maintain communications. Do not
use any more power than necessary. If you can easily reach the repeater with
one watt of power don't use 30 watts.
- VIII.
LINKED REPEATERS
- When working a
repeater that is linked, there will almost always be delays on receive and
transmit. After pressing the PTT button, always pause 1 to 2 seconds to allow
the system to fully activate the links. Failure to wait will prevent the
beginning words of your message from being heard by others. More importantly,
short messages that are inherent in net type operations won't be heard at all.
This might make you think people are not
responding to your message when in fact nobody heard anything, because you
didn't wait for the link-delays to finish.
- X.
ADDITIONAL REPEATER COMMANDS
- A.
Signal Report Test
The signal report test gives you the ability to
record your audio signal then immediately play it back to analyze your
signal strength into the repeater and your audio quality. To conduct a
signal report test:
- 1.
Identify using your FCC Amateur Call
Sign and announce your intentions to make a Signal Report Test.
- 2.
Key-up and send the DVR prefix code 24
- 3.
Un-key and the repeater voice will say
READY
- 4.
Key-up and record a seven second
message including your FCC Amateur call sign
- 5.
When you un-key, your audio message
will be played back by the repeater
- 6.
Identify using your FCC Amateur Call
Sign
- B.
DTMF Keypad Test
The DTMF Keypad test will test your rig sending of
DTMF tones. To conduct a DTMF Keypad test:
- 1.
Identify using your FCC Amateur Call
Sign and announce your intentions to make a DTMF Test.
- 2.
Key-up and enter the DTMF keypad
access code 85 followed by the keypad numbers and letters to be tested.
The entries can be in any order.
- 3.
Un-key and the repeater voice will
read back all numbers and letters that were decoded including the STAR (*)
and POUND (#). NOTE: the D key cannot be used.
- 4.
Identify using your FCC Amateur Call
Sign
