As many of you are aware, the Voice/Data over IP modes are rapidly gaining foothold in amateur radio. So far most of the requests for DMR and D-Star pairs here in Oklahoma have been on the 70 CM band, where plenty of open pairs are available. In central and far NE OK, two meter pairs are not available for any kind of repeater. Missouri is experiencing the same problem, especially in their major metro areas, like St. Louis and Kansas City. Like us, they want to encourage experimentation, and new technologies. So this is what they determined for two meters. These channels are to be used only in area where a regular repeater pair is not available. If regular two meter pairs are available, digital machines will be treated the same as analog machines. They will consider in some cases using 10 kHz separation if they have minimum 65 mile clearance on both adjacent channels, 40 mile or greater clearance on the 15 kHz adjacent channels.

Standard Channels not Available
If standard channels are not available, the digital systems may be coordinated on the following channel pairs until standard channels are available.
Output Frequency Input Frequency
146.4500 147.4500
146.4600 147.4600
146.4700 147.4700
146.4800 147.4800
146.4900 147.4900

Note: + 1 MHz offset.

Now by the ARRL band plan, which ORSI follows these are traditionally considered FM simplex channels. Our policy is that what happens on the simplex channels stays on the simplex channels, and is basically none of ORSI's business. We've had some people complain about something happening on a simplex frequency and the answer is that there is nothing we can do about it. You need to take that up with the FCC. Now I know that Texas started something like this too, and they threw a rock at a hornet's nest. Which isn't hard to do down in Texas. I think no matter what a coordinator does down there somebody gets mad.

Missouri recently sent an NOPC notice to clear a digital machine on 146.45 and my response was since that was not a repeater pair in Oklahoma. I really couldn't say. I told their coordinator that I did not know of any organized activity on either the input or output frequency so we will try it and see if anyone yells. The national simplex channel 146.52 will be left alone. I also know that some folks like 146.55, and a few 146.43, those are being left alone as well.

Two questions for ORSI officers and members:

1. Do you know of anyone using 146.45 and/or 147.45 in NE OK? They may get an earful of 1' and 0's soon.
2. Should Oklahoma adapt this as part of our band plan? Noting that so far most of the digital audio activity is from folks putting in Yaesu fusion repeaters, which blur the line as they can do FM or C4FM on the same frequency and from the same physical repeater.

Merlin WB5OSM
Oklahoma Frequency Coordinator