HAM’S LIFE

On January 8, 2008 I reported on a problem which has been developing between the Department of Defense and local 70 CM repeaters. It seems the United States Air Force believes these repeaters are interfering with their anti missile attack system called PAVE PAWS. If you would like to know more read the 01/08/2008 blog post.

Sense that post the USAF engineers have completed a second round of testing and have added 75 more 70 CM repeaters in Northern California to the already 122 repeaters that have had to adjust their power down from 7 to 56 DB (for those who are not acquainted with the math of logarithm a 56 DB drop is a decrease of power by 200,000 times thus a 20 watt repeater would have to be dropped in power to 100 microwatt).

Though repeaters in Massachusetts were included in the original 122 only those repeaters around Beale Air Force Base, about 40 miles north of Sacramento, California, were included in the additional 75. That is not to say Massachusetts will not have more added to their list in the future.

ARRL Regulatory Information Manager Don Henderson N1ND is reported as saying, “While ARRL knew that there was the possibility of additional repeaters being added in the follow-up list of those requiring mitigation, we are surprised by the large number of additions to the list after our discussions with FCC officials, they are becoming actively involved in ensuring that the correct repeaters have been identified and that the mitigation being required is what is actually needed to resolve the ongoing problem in each case.”

This area of Northern California is frequently plagued by floods and many of these repeaters would serve to assist in disaster relief communications in event of such flooding. It is good to see that the FCC and the ARRL are taking an active interest in the situation.

While I agree that national defense should take first priority and if the 70 CM repeater operations are interfering with this then they need to be adjusted or removed but if they are not causing a problem we need to get them back up and operating. We have been getting a lot of rain (it is raining even as I am writing) and while we are fine now who knows what could happen in the future. All it takes is a heavy warm rain on the higher then normal snow pack in the Mountains to release an uncontrollable amount of water down into the Sacramento Valley.