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H. R 1301
by Joseph Perez 02 Dec '16

02 Dec '16

Hey Y'all, If you haven't done so already, do not forget to contact Senator Nelson in regards to HR 1301. For those of you not aware of said legislation currently sitting in the senate and being blocked by Mr. Nelson, you can find more info here: http://www.arrl.org/news/arrl-issues-urgent-last-call-to-press-for-senate-p… 73's Respectfully, Joseph Perez K9USF

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Jumping in on the action here
by Herb Mooney 19 Nov '16

19 Nov '16

Hi all, Not new to wireless communications (that's my job, I work for Novatel Wireless), and not new to the amateur radio hobby (many of my friends and work counterparts are HAMs, but I'm not an actual licensed HAM...yet, taking he test this weekend at UPARC finally after enough pokes and prodding from other HAMs. I'm located in Palm Harbor. Looking forward to contributing and hanging out. Herb Mooney

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3.4 GHz link
by Bryan Fields 10 Nov '16

10 Nov '16

Ryan and I spent some time in Tampa today getting a 3.4 GHz UBNT M3 radio up and roughly aligned to St Pete. I have to say running the 8 cat5 cables at the same time was a great idea, all we had to do was put it up and terminate it. The St Pete side of HamWan should be up online perhaps Friday if everything goes well. We did a spectrum scan of the 3350 to 3500 MHz ham band and there is not even a single ping on the spectrum. It's quite amazing to see how clean 3.4 GHz is. http://gallery.keekles.org/d/30819-1/3ghz+spectrum.png If you have the antenna on a dummy load it looks the same! It's really going to be a great link. We expect to have a -55 dBm signal, which should really help when there is fading across Tampa Bay. 73's -- Bryan Fields, W9CR Florida Simulcast Group, Inc.

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Antenna height
by xloner12 09 Nov '16

09 Nov '16

Hey Guys, If I wanted to think about getting on the hamWan from a clearwater neighborhood, what height would I be looking at to get my antenna up to work? -- Tyler, KM4RAE xloner12(a)gmail.com

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St Pete Site update
by Bryan Fields 07 Nov '16

07 Nov '16

We had a bit of an impromptu meeting today talking about Downtown St Pete repeaters and hamwan. We have a bit more of challenging site here as we must use fiberglass antennas and can't really elevate over the roof. We're of course open to other ideas and donations as to what we're planning on doing. Short list of plans: Extend Hamwan to St Pete: The first part of this will be done this week (hopefully) which will be the installation of a 3 GHz link from Tampa. A router's been programmed and ready to be installed once we have a rack in place. Three Sectors will be installed on the lower roof providing 5.9 GHz access to St Pete a bit later. Mounting brackets will need to be installed first. For repeaters we're planing on the following: 220 MHz analog FM 440 MHz DMR 440 MHz analog FM and P25 440 MHz Dstar 900 MHz analog FM and P25 The 440 repeaters will be TX combined and multi-coupled onto separate antennas. Mounting the antennas will be a bit challenging as we'll be having to install a bit of unistrut on a concrete wall about 25' up. This should give us great coverage in the south Pinellas county area from Tiera Verde up to Largo/Clearwater. Expect HT coverage out 10-15 miles, and mobile out to 35-40. Most of the equipment is on hand, but some will need to be purchased. Quite a few parts are left over from the Tampa install. I'd estimate the following costs: 1200 Data Radios/accessories 1150 220 Antenna 600 Unistrut, FL code rated anchors and pipe 700 Grounding parts/wire, lightning arrestors 1200 Coax cable and connectors/kits 550 Controller server --- 5400 Total The good news is most of the repeater hardware, antennas, filters and other parts are going to be donated, or this would be 20k+ to build out. We'll be doing some targeted donations to build out this site as well. 73's -- Bryan Fields, W9CR Florida Simulcast Group, Inc.

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Tampa HamWAN IPv6
by Bryan Fields 06 Nov '16

06 Nov '16

I've enabled IPv6 with prefix delegation on the core router. The local interface you should see is 2607:f3f0:2:1000::1 on the router if over the wireless. I've not tested it but SLACC should work, and ideally DHCPv6 with PD should be going. Right now I'm using excel for IPAM :( 73's -- Bryan Fields, W9CR Florida Simulcast Group, Inc.

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Congrats to Ed and Joe!
by Bryan Fields 29 Oct '16

29 Oct '16

Ed and Joe passed their Tech license exams tonight. From what they've been told the FCC may have it processed as early as 5pm tomorrow. Congratulations to them both! 73's -- Bryan Fields, W9CR Florida Simulcast Group, Inc.

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Melbourne Hamfest Oct 21-22
by Bryan Fields 13 Oct '16

13 Oct '16

The Melbourne hamfest http://pcars.org/hamfest/2016/index.htm is on the 21 and 22nd (Friday and Saturday) of this month. I'm going and will be at the Hilton Melbourne Rialto Place for Friday night if anyone want's to come out and join us. As you may be aware of, the Florida Repeater Council meeting will be Saturday afternoon. I'm planing on being there and arguing for reform. If you want to become a member, please let me know and give me your proxy vote. We need to have real reform with amateur radio coordination in the state of Florida. http://bryanfields.net/FRC-info/Proxy%20Form.pdf 73's -- Bryan Fields, W9CR Florida Simulcast Group, Inc.

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repeater loop
by Bryan Fields 09 Oct '16

09 Oct '16

About 10 min ago I was told the 443.525 and 224.280 were keying up and back again. I unlined them and found it was the 220 repeater. This was linked to an echolink repeater 240254|KG6BND-R|73.155.96.57, which was the cause of the problems. I unlinked it and confirmed the issue was not our equipment/repeaters. I've linked 440 and 220 back again. Thanks, -- Bryan Fields, W9CR Florida Simulcast Group, Inc.

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Melbourne and Florida Repeater Council Information
by Bryan Fields 03 Oct '16

03 Oct '16

FYI, this is an email I sent out to all 600+ members in the FRC Database. The Melbourne hamfest is next weekend, and the FRC meeting is on Saturday. If you're interested it's a good hamfest and sure to be a fun council meeting. http://pcars.org/hamfest/2016/index.htm 73's -------- Forwarded Message -------- Subject: Florida Repeater Council Information Date: Sun, 2 Oct 2016 22:22:22 -0400 From: Bryan Fields <Bryan(a)bryanfields.net> To: frc-info(a)lists.keekles.org Greetings and welcome to the Florida Repeater Discussion List, I am Bryan Fields, W9CR. I’m involved in amateur radio in the Tampa Bay area, with membership in four local clubs and chairman of the Technical Committee for my local group. Professionally I am a Network Architect with a major telecom company. I’ve been a licensed amateur since 1995 (over 2/3 of my life), hold a GROL+Radar and have a background in cellular/microwave networks. Fellow Amateurs, the FRC is an organization run amuck. Incompetent directors are managing it, flouting the bylaws, violating Florida Law, and ignoring member needs. I am asking for your proxy for the upcoming FRC meeting. It has failed in its ability to coordinate operations of amateur radio repeaters in the following ways: * Publication of the FRC database on a public website o This database dump in MySQL format and the associated webpages show without a doubt the level of incompetency in the programming behind the database. This is nothing but gross negligence on the part of Director Rodakis and Director Lavender. o Per the coordination policy, locations are to be kept secret, however a Reddit user was kind enough to post a Google earth KML showing the coordinated location of every repeater in the state. o All your personal data, phone, email, home address, repeater site address and Repeater Site GPS coordinates are published. * Length of the coordination process is unacceptable! o As of this writing coordination applications post 1/25/2016 have not been processed. It’s */October/*! o If the coordinator cannot process applications in a reasonable time, he needs to step down. o Renewals have not been processed post 5/7/2016! As most coordinations expire on 9/30/2016, this means no members may vote under the bylaws! This applies to the board as well. * Violation of the coordination policy by the directors * Willful violation of the bylaws by the directors * Willful violations of FS 617 regarding members request for information o Acknowledged receipt of this by President Kassis * Publicly stating the policy of the FRC is “is unable to search for available frequencies”, when this is the FCC definition of a frequency coordinator. * When they do suggest frequencies there active repeaters on them, some even coordinated well under the radius. * Inventing new coordination polices on the fly without approval of the board The FRC must be reformed if it wishes to keep its legitimacy. Frequency coordination is voluntary in amateur radio, and there is little reason for amateur radio operators in Florida to seek coordination from the FRC under this current administration. My goal is to transform this organization into a healthy helping hand for repeater operators and other amateur spectrum users. No one should be answered with contempt for months after putting an application in for coordination only to be told “fill it out again, we can’t edit it”. This should not be an organization which exists as a good-ol’-boy system breading contempt; rather one which operates in the open, in accordance with its bylaws, and accountable to its members. The FRC should ask how to say “Yes” rather than saying “No” in working with their members and other amateurs. My plan to get us on the right track is: * Remove the current directors for gross incompetency and exposing the organization to liability: o Ray Kassis, N4LEM o Dana Rodakis, K4LK o (Glenn) Mike Fletcher, NI4M o Chuck Lavender, W4CLL * Demand new elections for existing directors in compliance with the bylaws. * Establish a bylaw committee to rewrite the bylaws and change the organization structure to better serve all amateurs in Florida. * Establish a development process for new policies from the membership * Encourage input from the membership based on sound technical policies * De-centralize coordination by having a web enabled database be accessible to the public showing all history of an application through coordination. * No one person should be the gatekeeper of the database. * Make all records of the FRC open to the public, as any non-profit serving the public interest must be. I will make a motion to accomplish this at the next meeting at the Melbourne Hamfest meeting. To make this happen, I am asking for your proxy, if you’re a member of the FRC. You will need to print out this form and sign it, then send a scan or legible picture of it to me via email or text message. If you can attend the meeting, please do so. It’s $10 to become a member on the FRC website and it buys the right to have a say in the future of amateur radio in Florida. http://florida-repeaters.org/donate.htm I fully expect to be shouted down by the board, but as members we cannot be ignored. I wish to resolve this via the membership, but if ignored I do intend to comply the board, by any legal means, to follow the bylaws and FS 617. I need your proxy by the Friday, October 7, 2016. 73’s and see you at Melbourne, Bryan Fields, W9CR P.S. Please feel free to discuss this on list. If you wish to not be a part of this discussion you can remove yourself using the link at the bottom. I'm happy to oblige your wishes via direct email as well if you have any questions.

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