Fun & Games: Repeater Coordination Edition

[W3WN]

I knew this was going to happen. I KNEW this was going to happen the minute I heard the news.

Let me first set the stage:

For most of the past 20+ years, Joe McElhaney KR3P has been the Repeater Coordinator for the Western PA Repeater Council (WPRC). That in & of itself is a long story.

However: At their quarterly meeting on April 15th, the current WPRC Board voted to replace Joe with Frank Bobro N3FB, effective immediately. [ No, I don't know all the reasons why this was done at that time, and the "news" announcement on the WPRC web site, www.wprc.us, doesn't go into it either. ]

Disclaimer: Frank is a good friend of mine, both he & his wife are members of my club, and he's previously served as the club VP/Secretary. Good guy, very knowledgable (he's the chief engineer of one of the local TV stations, owns one repeater system & helps maintain at least one other), and he will be very good, and very fair, at the job.

When I heard the news from Frank, my first thought was whether or not he'd be able to get all the records & all the software that Joe & his father Denny (N3EJY) had purchased in the past. Frank assured me that this was being worked on, and that there would also be a survey of current repeater owners on file to make sure they had up to date information.

So... let the games begin...

The other day, I get the following email (why? I don't know, I'm not a repeater owner, maybe because I was club President last year?) from the current WPRC Secretary, Paul AB3PJ:

> Good evening. All repeater trustees please follow the link below for important information. You may have received a second audit request.

Please disregard that request as all WPRC information and responses go thru the WPRC mail at the address listed on our web site. If you already sent in your audit response and request confirmation, please us the WPRC mail to verify the log number your response received.

All mail going thru the WPRC mail service, receives a log number for tracking purposes. All currently received responses have been processed or logged in, and passed on to N3FB.

Thank you.

Paul Bidzilya, WPRC Secretary

Uh oh. I immediately smell trouble. Dueling audit requests? (Someone cue the banjo players)

In today's mail comes this gem from KR3P:

Dear WPA coordination trustee,

As I predicted in the cover letter of the revised survey, this is an attempt by the Chairman and Secretary to interfere with your right to voice your opinion. Please do not be intimidated out of your rights. I am still the legal Frequency Coordinator, as defined by the WPRC constitution, and I have not received any surveys from the Secretary. As
such, I have requested that all replies be sent directly to myself to avoid "getting lost" by those who would try to silence your vote.

You have by personal assurance that each and every reply will be presented at the next WPRC meeting, and that they will be properly processed.

Sincerely, Joseph A. McElhaney (KR3P) Western Pennsylvania Frequency Coordinator

Sounds like he's not taking his being replaced very well, doesn't it?

I know this type of nonsense has infected other parts of the country in the past, now it's come home to roost. I'm looking forward to watching the developments from the sidelines... once I make another batch of popcorn.

And in case anyone wonders, I forwarded this missive to K3AIR. I have a feeling he's going to get dragged into it sooner or later, being the local ham attorney, so he might as well get started now. Personally, the only person who's word I'll believe right now on who actually IS the WPRC FC is his... not that I doubt Frank or the Board, but only Mike can tell me (if I ask) if all the i's were crossed & t's were dotted correctly...

*sigh*

[suddenseer]

I personally have a beef with the politics of repeater coordination. When the rules were solidified back in the 70's many of the good old boy club were assigned frequency pairs that are legally 'hands off', but are still not being used by an actual repeater. I tried to get coordination for a 6M machine 625' HAAT controlled by phone line, and a 1.2 ghz digital line from my gth to the machine 2 miles away. There are no ground wave machines anywhere near. I just did not bend over, and kiss the proper ass of the appropriate ARRL official, plain and simple. Sour grapes? you bet.

[W3WN]

Repeater Coordinators are not ARRL officials. They are appointed or elected by the local repeater councils, which are not ARRL sponsored organizations. The League has always had a hands-off relationship with the RC's... in part because many of the RC's weren't exactly League friendly.

The RC for eastern OH pulled a good one on WPA a good many years ago (at least 20). At the time, the WPa DX Association had a voice repeater for DX spotting on 2 meters. (This was before the advent of the cluster system). One day, an 8 station shows up and starts ragchewing, which was frowned upon on that machine. Then some others. Turned out that the OH RC body at the time had coordinated a machine co-channel about 50 miles away, on the state line. Even though the WPaDXA machine had been there for many years & had been fully coordinated.

Now I can't tell you why there was a communication... discontinuity... between the two groups, or if it was an ego clash, or what. Suffice to say that at the time, neither repeater would budge, their RC's backed them up, and it could have gotten ugly real fast. The only saving grace? Well, the spotting repeater very soon became very lightly used; partly due to the interference, partly due to the brand new Packet Cluster that AD8J installed on the Channel 53 tower (John was their CE at the time). The matter was finally resolved when the WPa machine was sold to other parties (since the most active DX'ers in the club were on now the cluster; well, except for the peons like me) and moved into Westmoreland County, where it remains to this day.

--

I've also had my run-ins with KR3P. Then-KA3COR & I had coordinated a 440 frequency pair at my home, with some difficulty but we finally got all the paperwork in order. Then I lost my job & the machine never materialized. A few years later, W3SRL & N3RNX were looking for a pair for their new 440 machine, so I offered them mine. Lo & behold, we learn that the coordination had been pulled & reassigned to... KR3P. When we confronted Joe shortly thereafter at a WPRC meeting, he claimed that we hadn't responded to requests for info. Turns out, the letters had never been sent... because KA3COR had become WN3BOJ, so the secretary at the time claimed she couldn't find the call (but still first claimed she'd sent the letters).

So why didn't we notify WPRC about the call change? Not only had we done so, but at the time of the change, Ted WORKED for KR3P & his dad in their commercial 2 way radio shop. We also saw them on a regular basis at hamfests and other events. So Joe KNEW about Ted's new call... except when it was convenient.

And all of our coordination paperwork, renewals (I'd held out hope that one day... but that day never came), and such? Disappeared. Never officially existed. Right.

When this was revealed at the meeting... and people started to wonder WTF?... Joe got real quiet, Denny (I wish I could remember his call) (N3EJY)got real quiet, then said he'd personally make sure that Steve & Pete would have a frequency. And a week later, they did.

And I never did figure out why Joe needed all these repeater frequenices coordinated to himself.

There've been a few other things, but you get the drift, I hope. Suffice to say that Joe set himself up to lose the job, and he finally did.

[WX7P]

I tried to get coordination for a 6M machine 625' HAAT controlled by phone line, and a 1.2 ghz digital line from my qth to the machine 2 miles away. There are no ground wave machines anywhere near. I just did not bend over, and kiss the proper ass of the appropriate ARRL official, plain and simple. Sour grapes? you bet.

Wow, really? This seems like a silly thing to have a turf battle over. 6 meters? We have a number of repeaters here, and there's never anyone on them, even when the cycle is up.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised. We had the big battle over "closed" repeaters on 440 here in Northern California for years, but that pretty much got wiped out by PAVEPAWS. I'm sure there's some other "controversy" brewing on vhf that I don't know about, because I stopped paying attention LONG ago.

I dropped out of the vhf/uhf game about 10 years ago. I had an Icom 1.2 rig which I used to talk to my friend Larry in Fremont, CA using a linked system. We talked every day for about a week. The guy that set up the system told us NOT to use the system because "it was lighting up too many light bulbs". There was no inappropriate language or anything, the owner just wanted to have his system there and have no one use it. That was it for me. I got rid of all the 1.2 stuff because what good was it if I couldn't use the only decent system in NorCal?

I still use 2 meters occasionally to talk to Larry, but we usually use HF. The only reason I use VHF at all is that it is on my 746Pro.

[suddenseer]

Repeater Coordinators are not ARRL officials. They are appointed or elected by the local repeater councils, which are not ARRL sponsored organizations. The League has always had a hands-off relationship with the RC's... in part because many of the RC's weren't exactly League friendly..

The RC's I dealt with were all ARRL state level officers. I don't know the dynamics going on today. This was 20 years ago. I was trying to promote local fm use of the magic band, plain and simple. The band is still for the most part very quiet here. My vision was simple. i wanted to encourage all licensed hams to get 6m fm. The coordination was for open carrier, no membership required, donations accepted. I still do not accept their reasons for not coordinating my request.

[KC2UGV]

This shit is why I stick to simplex... There's only one repeater I use locally, and the rest have far too many politics going on (Both ham politics, and government politics).

Simplex voice, and simplex digital.

[W3WN]

The RC's I dealt with were all ARRL state level officers. I don't know the dynamics going on today. This was 20 years ago. I was trying to promote local fm use of the magic band, plain and simple. The band is still for the most part very quiet here. My vision was simple. i wanted to encourage all licensed hams to get 6m fm. The coordination was for open carrier, no membership required, donations accepted. I still do not accept their reasons for not coordinating my request.

Even 20 years ago, the ARRL did not have anything to do with the operation of the Repeater Councils or the selection of their coordinators.

It may be that these folks held other ARRL section-level appointments... but RC is not amongst them. Never has been. To put it another way, they may have "muddied the water" to give an illusion of authority that they didn't actually have.

[suddenseer]

Wow, really? This seems like a silly thing to have a turf battle over. 6 meters? We have a number of repeaters here, and there's never anyone on them, even when the cycle is up.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised. We had the big battle over "closed" repeaters on 440 here in Northern California for years, but that pretty much got wiped out by PAVEPAWS. I'm sure there's some other "controversy" brewing on vhf that I don't know about, because I stopped paying attention LONG ago.

I dropped out of the vhf/uhf game about 10 years ago. I had an Icom 1.2 rig which I used to talk to my friend Larry in Fremont, CA using a linked system. We talked every day for about a week. The guy that set up the system told us NOT to use the system because "it was lighting up too many light bulbs". There was no inappropriate language or anything, the owner just wanted to have his system there and have no one use it. That was it for me. I got rid of all the 1.2 stuff because what good was it if I couldn't use the only decent system in NorCal?

I still use 2 meters occasionally to talk to Larry, but we usually use HF. The only reason I use VHF at all is that it is on my 746Pro.

I still do not understand the logic of denying a repeater on a dead band. I was vocal of my anti league rhetoric, that may have been the reason. I had a low VHF cavity (huge mother) i bought for $10 at a county auction. it would have allowed one antenna operation. I had 300' of hard line for the job. I was ready, and waiting. I sold the hard line, the cavity is in the storage shed, I think.

[W3WN]

I still do not understand the logic of denying a repeater on a dead band. I was vocal of my anti league rhetoric, that may have been the reason. I had a low VHF cavity (huge mother) i bought for $10 at a county auction. it would have allowed one antenna operation. I had 300' of hard line for the job. I was ready, and waiting. I sold the hard line, the cavity is in the storage shed, I think.

Well, FWIW, I agree with you -- as long as there were frequency pairs in your area available (and I have no way of knowing if they were or not), there's no good reason I can think of to deny coordination.

IF the Repeater Council & Frequency Coordinator at the time, individually or collectively, decided to withhold coordination for petty political reasons, such as your ARRL sentiments, or simply because they didn't like you, or for any of an unknown number of other reasons -- that was just plain wrong. That's not the way the system was supposed to work.

But, sad to say, some people are vindictive, petty & pentulant. As a result, crap like this happens. It's not right, but it does.

[KG4CGC]

"GET OFF MY PRIVATE FREQUENCY!"
Er, um, "LAWN!"