KF7JAF

I live in the Las Vegas valley, in Southern Nevada. We are pretty much stuck with what is available locally, in terms of infrastructure like repeaters. If there is a serious power outage or other natural disaster, (forest fire, flood, tornado, hurricane, etc.) a lot of this infrastructure will stop working. One of my local repeaters experienced a localized power failure recently. The battery backup lasted about 12 hours. That same repeater is linked to other repeaters and the Allstar network via a microwave link to the local internet. This link failed, and we were able to reconnect using a mesh network. It required a trip up a mountain via 4 wheel drive to reset breakers and get it all working again. All of this stuff is primarily analog. Our local club is putting a D-Star repeater up on a mountain in the next week or two. Another club already has a couple of C4FM repeaters. There are also a couple DMR repeaters. Considering that all the clubs here are volunteer operated, repeater networks are built with donated and scrounged equipment, we've managed to accomplish a lot. The basic problem is that none of these digital protocols are compatible with each other. Inexpensive DMR radios are becoming more available, but other formats are more expensive. I've not seen an HT with FreeDV but that may change with the increase of inexpensive imports from Asia. I'm waiting to find out what the new Icom D-Star HT will cost, before I decide what I'm going to do. It looks like some kind of hotspot will be a necessity for maximum utility, regardless of which format I decide to go with. That's my two cents worth, anyway. Dave KF7JAF

Hey Ham Community, this is an automated post on behalf of our new member: KF7JAF, On behalf of Ham Community, let's give KF7JAF a warm welcome. KF7JAF, we encourage you to browse around and get to know the Community's many sections. If you have any questions please don't hesitate to ask, as with all things HAM, we all love to give advice 😎 For everyone's information, KF7JAF joined on the 05/09/2021; this is their profile: View Member.