[App_rpt-users] Using an external Controller

[Robert A. Poff WB3AWJ]

I have to admit, when I first started looking at AllStar, the idea o f a computer running the re peater seemed a bit risky. 
Several decades of keeping things running on hilltops made me leery . 

But now with my first node appro aching it's third (or is it fourth?) anniversary , I've realigned my stance. 

In that time the only ti mes that I've ha d to make a n "emergency" run to th at si te is : 
1. The repeater went dead in the middle of the day. When I go t to the site, I found that someone had 
turned the breaker off in the electrical distribution p anel. 
2. Some dummy (me) wasn't paying at tention to which re mote console session he was on when he typed "poweroff <enter>". 

I have had some problems though wi th one of the repeaters ( t wo seperate no des operating as a s plit site 10m repeate r), b ut that has turned out to be a hardware p roblem that I didn't catch before putting that computer into service. 

Now I do ha ve each bo x exec ute a c ontrolled shutdown and re boot once a week in the wee hours of Sunday morning. 
And while I haven't been extravagant on the computer hardware, I haven't cut things to the bone . 
E ach of my boxes are at least a 3. 0 Ghz P4 with a gig or two of memory. (each bought on Ebay for about $7 5) 

They sit th ere hour after hour, run ning the repeater, ID scri pts, weather al ert and observation scripts, on sche dule jumping between WAN -RS , Alaska Morning Net, and the Insomni ac net. R unning AR Newslin e Monday and Friday nights . And running other housekeeping scripts (rsync the custom nodename list, rs ync new versions of my scripts, and so on). Oh, and s ervicing a handful Asterisk extens i ons wi th attending IAX trunks bet ween the repeaters. 

On the other hand, at work I have a fa irly expensive dedicated broadcast remote control (like a repeater "controller") on our TV translator about fif ty miles away , on top of a mountain w ith a nasty access road, that drives me NUTS! 








WB3AWJ 
Robert A. Poff 
Loganville, PA. 
"Lieutenant, target the offending power boat and launch photon torpedoes" 
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