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![Previous (earlier) Story](/images/sty-down.gif ""Absolutely Unbelievable!" Hams Support Massive Firefighting, Relief Effort"){kind=small} Previous: "Absolutely Unbelievable!" Hams Support Massive Firefighting, Relief Effort |  Next: Amplitude Modulation at HamCom 2003 |
NEWINGTON, CT, Oct 28, 2003--It was a first in the history of the Green Mountain Repeater Association: police transmissions being heard over the 146.610 MHz repeater.
GMRA has operated and maintained the 146.610 and 146.880 repeaters in the Washington, DC area for over 32 years, said a founding member of the association, Murray Green, K3BEQ. "You can imagine the surprise we had this summer," he said.
The repeater association had its share of typical interference issues over the years--open microphones, pager systems, stuck commercial transmitters, aircraft transmissions and anti-transmitter defense systems, to name a few. All were isolated and resolved quickly and amicably, Green noted.
"The clarity of the transmissions varied from clear to distorted to incomplete. A quick check of the input frequency and those adjacent to it revealed that the interfering signal moved up and down between 146.010 and 146.050 MHz, accounting for the distortion and sometime disappearance of the signal," Green said.
GMRA member Cliff Thompson, KB3IJF, an avid scanner listener, immediately identified the signal as emanating from a police repeater a few miles away, operating on a frequency of 159.315 MHz; two other members confirmed his observations and Thompson informed the Association's Trustee, Joe Nunemaker, KD3VR.
Nunemaker called the police dispatcher and informed her of the interference. "Shortly thereafter, Joe received a telephone call from a police communications technician and in an ironic twist, the technician turned out to be a ham," Green related. The problem was coming from a replacement repeater that had been installed just that very afternoon. The technician assured Nunemaker that he would correct the problem first thing in the morning, Green said. "True to his word, the interference stopped the [next] morning...and did not reappear," Green stated.
He said he felt that a number of events resulted in the rapid response to the problem:
• the immediate detection by a member and control stations
• the rapid identification of the alleged offending transmitter and its frequency
• the quick reaction in notifying the police department
• working with a technician who was responsive to the interference complaint
"It is the Association's experience that you cannot sit on the problem and expect it to go away," Green said. "It must be attended to as rapidly as possible and within the limit of a Club's resources. GMRA is fortunate enough to have astute communicators who are not only technically competent, but diplomatic in their coordination approach--a very important aspect in correcting an alleged problem. The last thing you want the other person to do is become defensive."
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