Our repeater owner was kind enough to supply us with an electronic copy of their operating guidelines. These guidelines are the conditions under which we have been granted use of the their repeater.

All the items I've seen in their guidelines are nothing new to me and more than likely they won't be new to you either. With that said, pay particular attention to the notes on identifying your station in this message, and also on our Event Information page.

It is also very important to understand how we will behave should a "Jammer" attempt to interfere with our communications. The importance of this is higher than usual for me because two weeks ago when we provided support for the ~2,000 bicycle event for the MS-Chapter's Top Hat Classic in Dublin, the Mt. Diablo machine was plagued by a jamming station during a lengthy period of the event. Every station in the event followed what is written below about dealing with jammers and the interference had limited effect and eventually stopped.

Another area that seems to cause problems on a linked system like we will use on Sunday are the delays caused by the linking process. These delay are less than a second, but often people begin to speak as they begin to push the PTT button. Without any linking, the first part of a word is lost. With linking, the first few words are lost and in some case, people can have an entire fast call lost. Please press the PTT, pause and then speak. For station working through the cross-band links, test your call before continuing. For example, start your call with, "Let's see if I have it", and then release the PTT to listen. If you are not talking over another station then you'll hear nothing. If you are you should hear them talking and your transmission won't be jamming their traffic.

These guidelines should cover everything we need to be good tenants on the repeater Sunday. Please take a few minutes to read them before the event so you'll have a solid understanding of what constitutes acceptable use of this machine.

To qualify for using the K6FB/R repeater system: your communications event must be supporting a non-profit organization; radio stations participating must be in compliance with FCC rules, and 'best practice' Amateur Radio procedures and follow our local, or club operating procedures listed below:

1. A net control station (NCS) should operate the net as a 'directed net' so as to control all radio traffic during the event. The NSC is responsible for compliance of FCC and local best-practice operation by all stations operating within the net. NCS should acknowledge all repeater traffic within and outside the net.
   
2. All net participating stations may use tactical call signs but must ID with the FCC issued call at 10 minute intervals, or at the end of their final transmissions. NSC will encourage all stations to comply with this ID requirement.
   
3. All stations must leave a sufficient pause between transmissions to allow for emergency traffic; generally, waiting for the courtesy tone should be sufficient. It should be noted that the repeater has a max user transmit time, also known as a time-out timer of 3 minutes. This timer can only reset by allowing the input signals to drop. A reset is indicated with a courtesy tone. The tone may different depending on the repeater operation mode.
   
4. The net must yield for any emergency traffic, or 9-1-1 phone patches. The NCS Stations with emergency traffic may use the term "break", or "break, break". These key word terms are reserved for emergency traffic only and should not be used for non-emergency requests for breaks.
   
5. The net should yield for any station wishing to call, or contact another station that might be monitoring the repeaters. These breaking stations might break-in with the prefix of their call sign, or some other term like "contact." These stations should be acknowledged and given room to make their contact. During slow net periods some stations may not be aware of net activity. These stations should be allowed to make their call without acknowledgment of the net. If necessary, net control may break-in with net traffic using the above-described methods. The casual repeater users will generally yield to nets and net traffic and keep the repeater free of "rag-chew" type traffic.
   
6. All stations operating on the repeater should handle intentional interference (jamming) with extreme care. Improper handling of such an incident will have a negative effect on the net and future repeater operation for an extended period of time. Intentional interference is rare on the K6FB repeater system, but in the event it happens during a net, the following guidelines are offered: 
   1. Never talk to, or about anyone operating illegally (jamming) on the repeater.  
   2. Never acknowledge that any jamming activity is occurring.
   3. Never let a jammer know that he is having an impact on your operation.
   4. Never conduct any search, or interference mitigation efforts on the K6FB repeater system.
   5. Should the jamming make it impossible to continue net operations, move to a predetermined back-up frequency or stop operation for a short period of time (see recommendations for a assembling a strong net operations).
      
7. The NSC should open and close the net with an "official' announcement declaring that a net is/has been in operation. This announcement might include a short description of the event and net operations. This announcement should be repeated thought out the duration of the net at regular intervals. We recommend announcing the nets operation every 30 min. At the close of the net, NCS should "officially" return the repeater to normal-operation.  
   
8. This requirement should be passed on to all net participants in advance of the net. If that is not possible NSC should pass on the information as necessary. Ultimately it is the NSC responsibility to see that repeater procedures are followed.

The following recommendations should help you demonstrate good communications on our repeater(s):

1. The NCS should always operate from a fixed location with a minimum transmit capability of 25-watts in to a base station of mobile type antenna. NCS operation location should be selected in advance of the event for good logistical proximity to the event, and good radio signal propagation to the repeater(s).
   
2. Mobile stations working the event should operate with a minimum of 5 to 25 watts using an outside mobile type antenna. Using a portable radio with a "rubber-duck" type antenna within a vehicle almost never yields acceptable communication grade audio.
   
3. Portable stations should operate with a minimum capability of 5 watts into a gain antenna. Operating with a speaker-mic often leads to failure to remove the radio from the waist this may result in inferior signals. When operating with a speaker-mic, it is recommended that the radio/antenna be elevated during radio transmissions or be connected to a stationary high-gain antenna.
   
4. When working the repeater system from the UHF side there will be delays on receive and transmit.  After pressing the PTT button, always pause 1 to 2 seconds to allow the system to fully activate the links. This applies whether you are operating on the uhf or vhf side of the system. Failure to do so will eliminate the beginning words of your message traffic from being heard by others. More importantly, short messages that are inherent in net type operations, won't be heard at all, leaving you thinking people aren't responding to your message when in fact nobody heard anything because you didn't wait for the link-delays in the repeater to allow contact.
   
5. The repeater controller, if operated in a non-net macro mode my produce synthesized speech, or voice on the output frequencies. It should be noted, and it is highly recommended, that stations should not wait for or allow this speech to interrupt their transmission. It is acceptable and desirable to key-up and interrupt this speech. In effect, by doing so, you will terminate the speech. In the event of a repeater ID a Morse ID will be substituted and at a lower volume. If your event requires that no speech be generated, please pre arrange for a net-mode macro to be installed into the repeater controllers.
   
6. The repeater system is supported and maintained by an active club of approximately 125 local hams and other scanner operators. This ham population comes from a wide area within and outside the Santa Clara Valley.
   
7. We hope that your experience on the K6FB repeater system is a good one and that the system servers you well. In the event you have difficulty or encounter problems please let any club Director know. Most time there will be a control operator present, or listening to your event. Feel free to call on the control operator, you may want to pre arrange contact information of a control operator. K6FB/R specifications:

UHF - Black Mtn. 442.575MHz (+) offset PL 100Hz

VHF – Castle Rock 145.45MHz (-) offset PL 100Hz