[k6arc] Reverse Autopatch

[ron cissna]

As I remember the rev auto patch was used by club members when they were traveling, to check in to the weekly net.  I may be wrong but the calls were most always pre-advised.  When the N.C. started the net the announcement was made to keep xmsn's short and to expect a rev auto-patch check-in from..........  Once the check-in period was complete however, all bets were off.  Officers' reports ran long and we broadcast "News Line" over the net ( avg. time 20min. with 10 min ID bk.  I do not recall conflict issues, again I could be wrong.   Anyway, food for thought. Schedualing may be the answer.   73 de KC6MFJ

--- On Sun, 3/7/10, Chuck Bland - NA6BR <na6br at blandranch.net> wrote:


From: Chuck Bland - NA6BR <na6br at blandranch.net>
Subject: [k6arc] Reverse Autopatch
To: k6arc at k6arc.org
Date: Sunday, March 7, 2010, 10:36 AM


Friends and Club Members,

Recently, the issue of our reverse autopatch has surfaced. As a general
issue, reverse autopatch has been a touchy subject for the entire Amateur
Radio service. But over time, rulings, policies, and technology have
cleared most of the ambiguity. That means there is a solution for us as
well. I will address them here as the trustee of our club call, K6ARC.
(See our FCC listing at
http://wireless2.fcc.gov/UlsApp/UlsSearch/license.jsp?licKey=254592 )

Last week, Sam Hernandez, WS6P, posted an excerpt from an ARRL web page
that was quite informative. The information is from Dan Henderson at ARRL.
He provides regulatory info to ARRL members and wrote a great article. It
was that article that Sam quoted. To read it yourself, please visit
http://www.arrl.org/FandES/field/regulations/phone-patch.html .

There are two main points to glean from that article.

1) "No unlicensed person may initiate an amateur transmission without the
knowledge and approval of the station's control operator."

Unfortunately, this is what happens on our reverse patch most of the time.
Most of the time, the reverse patch rings because someone has the wrong
number. There is no way to avoid these unlicensed people from causing our
transmitter to key-up. Therefore, when this happens, we are in violation
of FCC rules:

Section 97.5 Station license grant required.
(a) The station apparatus must be under the physical control of a person
named in an amateur station license grant on the ULS consolidated license
database.........

Section 97.7 Control operation required.
When transmitting, each amateur station must have a control operator. The
control operator must be a person:
(a) For whom an amateur operator/primary station license grant appears on
the ULS consolidated licensee database.............

Since we enable this by having the reverse patch ability, we are in
violation of FCC rules. This is further clarified in the article:

"If an incoming call automatically causes the repeater to transmit, even
if it's just a signal tone or notification message, then it is possible
for an unlicensed person to initiate a transmission without the control
operator's knowledge or approval, which is not permitted."

2) "Incoming calls to an autopatch must be answered and screened off the
air by the control operator to ensure rule compliance."

We have no way, with our present repeater controller, to perform this
function. We answer it in the blind. There are too many FCC rules for me
to cite that discuss the various issues that must be compliant before we
let a voice go over the air from the phone patch.

This also means, as Sam pointed out in his posting, that any operator that
answers a reverse patch, is also in violation of Part 97.

So, with these two major issues it is clear that the reverse patch should
be permanently disabled.

Now, in taking this action, we loose the ability for folks to call-in for
Net checkins. As I see it, if this is something the Club really wants to
be able to do, there are a couple of ways to make this happen:

1) Replace our repeater controller with one that requires passcodes on the
reverse patch, such that only those with such a passcode (like licensed
members) can actually gain access to the patch and cause it to transmit.
On these systems, if you don't have a code, you don't cause the system to
transmit, thus keeping everything legal. This would not be cheap:
between$1,000 to $2,000 dollars and would require a fund raising effort on
our part.

2) Properly setup the ability for our system to be on Echolink or IRLP.
This would mean some kind of new hardware, either a new controller or
additional hardware for the Echolink/IRLP interface. I understand this was
tried earlier via a remote radio. It had some difficulties. There are
other ways we can do this. We would also need an internet connection to
the site. Normally, this takes money, but we can investigate some
alternatives that might work. Overall, to persue this, we would need it to
be the pleasure of the membership to do so.

One interesting this comes to my mind in all this. Such a change would be
a move forward for our club in our technology and abilities. There are
good reasons to do this as well as reasons not to. It is a worthy
discussion.

So, what do you think?

Chuck Bland



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