TCFMC's digital leap

Not that you would know it from the TCFM club website, but the 444.100 repeater has been replaced.

The news was announced on the .850 net a couple of weeks ago, and N0YNT (Matt) used his position as Net Control Operator to shake loose a few additional facts from those making that announcement. Yaesu has loaned the TCFMC a UHF repeater for an indefinite period for testing. What's even more interesting is that this repeater is a hybrid that handles both analogue and Yaesu's new C4FM digital mode.

Digital FM modes are not the first thing that come to my mind when I think about the Twin Cities FM Club. Remember, this is a club that had its (much-vaunted) EchoLink node off-line for over seven months of the last twelve. It's a club that ceased its sponsorship of an annual HamFest (the source of nearly all of the club's revenue) due to a tantrum over how ham radio has changed from the good old days. It's a club with a membership so firmly entrenched in the 1970's and the pre-cell phone era that they consider UHF to be "cutting edge". It's a club with a morning net that's so geriatric that you can almost feel your arteries harden as you listen to it.

The 444.100 (or "dot one", as it's called) has been a persistent source of irritation and controversy for the TCFMC. It would simply shut down during the morning net, or experience severe receiver problems for no apparent reason for an hour or so. In spite of a few drives to raise money to replace the "dot one", it's always been beyond the financial resources of the club to do that, and it's been beyond the technical skill of the club to make it work properly and reliably. The other UHF machine that the club operates, the 444.125+ (114.8 PL) in Edina, is completely unused. I've "ker-chunked" it at a mere S1 from a distance of fifteen miles, which makes it unusable north of I-694 -- if even that far. While the "dot one" has better coverage, I've found that it doesn't live up the claims of so many members. I've failed to "ker-chunk" it in Maplewood, and also in several places in Anoka County. It doesn't compare favourably to the coverage offered by the 444.425, 444.800, 442.600, 444.775, or the 444.175 repeaters.

The new hybrid repeater experienced problems at first. The squelch tail would include a digital signal, reception range was dismal, and signals into the machine were often intermittent. The morning net all but shook their fists at the new-fangled contraption. Yet, it seems to be working fine now and is carrying its usual load of traffic. The only thing that I've noticed is that the initial second or so of the transmitting signal is chopped off by the repeater on a consistent basis. I've yet to hear any reports on the C4FM performance.

The battle over digital mode dominance is an existential one, on the level of VHS vs. Betamax. There are variants of DMR, D-Star, P-25, and other proprietary codecs all vying for an edge. It would seem that the hobby hardly needs yet another addition to this conflict, but Yaesu is forging ahead with C4FM much as it pushed its previous 'success' known as WIRES. It's very difficult to sell C4FM rigs if there aren't any C4FM repeaters to use them on, so Yaesu is "priming the pump" with this loan. Yaesu's choice of the TCFMC as the host of this experiment is bewildering to me.

Digital FM modes seem to me to be a solution in search of problem. There are two advantages: more efficient use of spectrum and noise-free signals.

With so many virtually unused FM repeaters in town, though, is there really a lack of spectrum? Are the repeaters so crowded that we need new ways to jam more people on to the frequency pairs? Please point me to just one of these crowded FM repeaters. And narrower bandwidth means lower quality audio, with a significant amount of the individual's vocal characteristics lost in the trimming.

As far as noise-free coverage, the price is the loss of weak signals. It's not magic. If a digital signal can't make it into the repeater clearly, then it it's ignored by the repeater. Simply turning up the squelch on an analogue repeater's receiver would probably produce a remarkably similar result. Certainly, digitising the signal eliminates noise inherent in the signal's transfer from receiver to transmitter, but is that such a major problem currently? And it does nothing to address the growing problem of RFI everywhere, which affects the repeater and user radio alike.

In any case, this loan from Yaesu won't last forever. And, given the current financial woes of the TCFMC, there's no way that they are going to actually buy one of the Fusion machines. It's equally doubtful that the club can take advantage of this respite to replace or refurbish the old "dot one". Apparently, they barely have the money to pay for the site of their VHF repeater at the moment.

This isn't a problem exclusive to TCFMC, though. Other clubs have a membership base that is mostly retired and on a fixed income, too. Sending donations to a ham radio club is far down on their list of fiscal priorities. And the generational tantrum that males in this age group are bitterly locked into only reinforces an attitude of letting it all burn down and letting the 'younger' people pick up the pieces. Meanwhile, those 'younger' people (who are not particularly young) can barely suppress rolling their eyes in disdain over this tantrum, and hardly feel that they are welcome in that environment. These clubs are 'open' to any younger person, as long as they have an elderly mind-set, agree enthusiastically with all of the nonsense and paranoia, and openly acknowledge their obvious inferiority to their elders. Oh, and they must be willing to pay all of the bills, too. And if they keep their crazy ideas about where the hobby should go to themselves, all the better. But, yeah, other than that the amateur radio clubs are completely open.

Full disclosure: I am a dues-paying member of the TCFMC and I also have contributed to their repeater fund more than once. Over the past year, however, I've been sorely disappointed by the club's cliquish and arrogant membership, and I no longer use their repeaters. While I contribute about $70 each month to various amateur radio clubs and repeater trustees whose gear that I use, none of that goes to the TCFMC. I want my donations to support the future of the hobby, and not some long-dead past that only remains in the memories of a surly and condescending few. Since I no longer use their infrastructure, renewal in the club is 'unlikely' for me.