Illinois Repeater Association

Hi Everyone!
I attended the annual meeting of the Illinois Repeater Association, this weekend. At least one other JARS member was in attendance also. Al, N9MAF was there representing the JARS and his own repeaters. After a year of two systems running D-Star repeaters on the same pair that an analog system was once on in the Chicago area, the move looks like it will be made permanent. For those not aware how that was accomplished, the new digital systems were placed six and a quarter KC's up and down from the original center channel that the analog system operated on. That give them twelve and a half KC's of separation and that works quite well for these D-Star systems. The move will generate two channels for one with the ability to us the old center channel as a geographically spaced adjacent. My hats off to Robert Shepard, KA9FLX for his work in designing this bandplan that will make efficient use of our spectrum and be friendly neighbors to the existing analog systems. The membership voted to send a donation to the ARRL spectrum defense fund. Our spectrum has never been under attack from outside sources more than it is right now. I would urge all of us to donate what we can to help the ARRL lobby against the forces that are working to disable our ability to use this valuable spectrum for emergency communications in the nations time of need.
73
Tim, KB9FBI