Repeater Couresty Tone

[WRNV967]

Was wondering what are people's take or opinion about a couresty tone on a gmrs repeater? I know some have it and some don't. I myself like the couresty tone on a repeater helps to let the next person know when the last have finished transmitting. Also leaves some time between transmission incase somebody with a emergency needs to be able to key up the repeater and use it. But some users it seems to confuse them. In my opinion it kinda of let's you know that you have somewhat atleast got into the repeater at some point in your transmission.

[SteveShannon]

32 minutes ago, kg4lhc said:

In my opinion it kinda of let's you know that you have somewhat atleast got into the repeater at some point in your transmission.

I like it for that same reason.

[gortex2]

I dont have it on any of mine. I see no need but hams do love stuff like that. You wont see it on a commercial system anywhere.

[WRNV967]

Yes not any commerical repeaters I know have it. I can see in everyday commerical radio traffic it could get very boring hearing it after every transmission.  They usually have lots of radio traffic in a given day or week.

[WRUU653]

41 minutes ago, kg4lhc said:

In my opinion it kinda of let's you know that you have somewhat atleast got into the repeater at some point in your transmission.

Yes I do like it for this also, I like knowing if I am even getting to the repeater from my location.  I can appreciate wanting a clean transmission though. As for commercial not using it this makes sense to me. Wouldn’t much of your traffic if not all be going through the repeater? If that’s the case I don’t see the point in it. 

[BoxCar]

Setting a squelch tail is the primary method used on the repeaters in my area. You hit transmit on your radio for a second and release. If you here a noise immediately after you know you triggered the repeater.

[tweiss3]

I find them helpful at times, but my repeater doesn't have it available in the controller, and its not the end of the world. 

[SteveShannon]

I found it useful last week when I was helping a brand new ham set up his 2 meter handheld (there are no GMRS repeaters in my area yet).  He lives just down the street from me and the courtesy beep helped me know when he was actually going through the repeater instead of transmitting simplex on the receive frequency. I had to purposely listen for it through because I don’t even notice it otherwise.

So, it’s useful, but at least for me it isn’t bothersome.

 

[WRNV967]

@BoxCar never heard of  repeaters around my area doing the squelch tail . I know what it sounds like Guess thats kinda of a poor man's  couresty tone. 

[UncleYoda]

2 hours ago, kg4lhc said:

Was wondering what are people's take or opinion about a couresty tone on a gmrs repeater?

The main benefit in my experience (HAM not GMRS but doesn't matter) is that the tone allows someone to respond without letting the repeater drop every time.  You still want to leave a gap every so often for others to join in, but don't necessarily need to do that after every short transmission.

Quote

Also leaves some time between transmission incase somebody with a emergency

Actually, like I said above, it's more the opposite in my experience.  It means you don't need to wait.  I asked one repeater owner about why he had it setup to use a courtesy tone, and he confirmed it was to allow transmit without letting the repeater drop to keep the repeater from cycling on and off so much.

[MarkInTampa]

6 hours ago, BoxCar said:

Setting a squelch tail is the primary method used on the repeaters in my area. You hit transmit on your radio for a second and release. If you here a noise immediately after you know you triggered the repeater.

Same here. We do have a pretty strong local repeater that has close to no if any squelch tail or ID. It's a great repeater but nobody thinks it works half the time because of the lack of of a tail or ID. It's hard to tell you even keyed it.

[WRUH396]

The most popular Ham 2M repeater in my area (Utah County 146.76) has almost no tail to where slower radios like Baufeng UV5R may no indication or tail which seems to actually encourage "Kerchunking" since people do not know whether they have hit the machine or not. 

The family repeater I put together had a decent squelch tail but I know what you mean about not being able to tell when you have keyed it up.  I was not sure what kind of tail if any I would get from my RICK style repeater but it surprisingly has a decent tail on it.  If not that would have been one of my first priorities. 

My thought is you may see some hams that look down on courtesy tones since the it feels too CBish, yet in my mind they do serve a purpose beyond cycling the transmitter relays.  Without even thinking about it, it lets me know if the other operator unkeyed or otherwise dropped out of the machine versus the possibility that it is my receive that has changed, especially when mobile.  Certainly there are plenty of ham repeaters out there with courtesy tones and not once have I ever thought to myself, "oh this tone is so annoying".  I really have come to the conclusion that there are many people that just want to bellyache and complain.  While, I would not add some CB 5-tone "roger beep" I think a modest courtesy tone is a great addition.  Even NASA uses tones for the astronauts.  

[marcspaz]

I like courtesy tones for digital radio, where there is no obvious break, but not for analog. I prefer a slightly extended squelch tail on analog. 

Dealers choice, as the say.

[WRUH396]

33 minutes ago, marcspaz said:

I like courtesy tones for digital radio, where there is no obvious break, but not for analog. I prefer a slightly extended squelch tail on analog. 

Dealers choice, as the say.

I like that....   

[tweiss3]

1 hour ago, marcspaz said:

I like courtesy tones for digital radio, where there is no obvious break, but not for analog. I prefer a slightly extended squelch tail on analog. 

Dealers choice, as the say.

That is what I did to mine, extended it just log enough to hear.

[WRKC935]

The only repeater I have with one is the linked repeater.  And it's a three tone setup.  One tone is for Linked RX, second is for local receiver RX and the third tone is only heard when the repeater is NOT linked to another node or hub.  I do this to inform users that they are both local if that's the case so they can switch to the local repeater and not tie up the system.  The third tone I use to verify the system is linked up.  I can key and ID and know if things are working right or not. 

 

[WRNV967]

@markskjerve Most the gmrs repeaters around my area id but the id of the repeater doesn't include the ctcss tone or dcs tone with the id. So most people never hear the id. The repeater you are talking about might be doing the same thing. Do you hear a id from the repeater if you listen to the repeater channel without a ctcss or dcs enabled?

[MarkInTampa]

5 hours ago, kg4lhc said:

@markskjerve Most the gmrs repeaters around my area id but the id of the repeater doesn't include the ctcss tone or dcs tone with the id. So most people never hear the id. The repeater you are talking about might be doing the same thing. Do you hear a id from the repeater if you listen to the repeater channel without a ctcss or dcs enabled?

Actually I have CTCSS and DCS on receive disabled for repeater channels and only use tones on transmit. That way I can tell if somebody is running simplex on a repeater channel, if I have two repeaters on the same frequency, find new repeaters, etc. I've got a decent antenna and radio (KG1000+ feeding a Comet GP-6 GMRS) and don't really get much if any interference from out of band to really need tone on receive.  I also keep the repeater input channels in my repeater scan group as well to see I can can receive the input and how strong it is (make a simplex buddy!) or if there is somebody talking simplex on them causing interference to the input of a repeater. This actually happens a lot, we have a shipping port near two of our repeaters and some foreign ships use 467.5500 and 467.7000 simplex causing havoc on the repeater inputs for a day or so until they depart the port.

[KAF6045]

17 hours ago, WRUH396 said:

My thought is you may see some hams that look down on courtesy tones since the it feels too CBish, yet in my mind they do serve a purpose beyond cycling the transmitter relays.  Without even thinking about it, it lets me know if the other operator unkeyed or otherwise dropped out of the machine versus the possibility that it is my receive that has changed, especially when mobile.  Certainly there are plenty of ham repeaters out there with courtesy tones and not once have I ever thought to myself, "oh this tone is so annoying".  I really have come to the conclusion that there are many people that just want to bellyache and complain.  While, I would not add some CB 5-tone "roger beep" I think a modest courtesy tone is a great addition.  Even NASA uses tones for the astronauts.  

Local 2m has multiple remote receivers which all feed to main repeater (with some sort of election logic as to which remote/local has best signal to repeat).

Courtesy tones are Morse, one or two letters, identifying which remote or main receiver handled the signal. Since I'm still a no-code (even at Extra) I can't really tell them apart.