Fast Repeater Access

As most of us that regularly use the local repeater GB3WS know it takes a long time to access the repeater for the first time when it has gone into standby mode. For example unless you prefix your callsign with six seconds of silence, the beginning of your first call is cut off. I personally recite a short phase like "sugar plum fairy, sugar plum fairly" before saying anything on the microphone to avoid this problem. This delay is due to reconfiguration that was necessary to prevent spurious access. The essence of the reconfiguration was that 531 cycles of 88.5Hz continuous tone-coded squelch system (CTCSS) are now needed to start up the repeater. The very crowded nature of the 2M repeater segment in the UK has meant that this long access time will become common to all UK repeaters. There is, however, a fix for this and that is to increase the CTCSS tone by a factor of 10 which will bring the access time down to about 600ms. Indeed there is an EU directive on communications efficiency (I/IV2010) that requires UK repeaters to move to this fast access system. As is typical in the UK, there is an opt-out scheme that individual repeater keepers can apply for provided that they can show that a majority of the local users have contacted them and asked for a retention of the old system.

All of the manufacturers have updated their new rigs to support this fast access mode with will additional CTCSS tones in the range 670Hz to 2750Hz. However the dealers are reluctant to sell the sets with the new software until all of the existing inventory has been sold. It is reported however that if you are sufficiently insistent and prepared to pay a premium you can get a newer model with the support needed to access the latest generation of repeaters.

For those of us with older sets there is a retrofit available from an enterprising UK firm based in
Ffwl just west of Cardiff by the name of Ebrill. More information about this organization can be found through the Google Welsh service.