Repeater: Is anyone going to buy the President Washington to use it for the "relay" function?

[Big Kahuna]

Pretty interesting to see this feature included.

AUTOMATIC RELAY This function turns your PRESIDENT WASHINGTON into an automatic relay point. Once set up, your radio will automatically transmit the message received on the RX reception channel to the TX transmission channel. The duration of the message is limited to 5 minutes. When the function is active, your radio is locked. To unlock it, see the LOCK function on page 10. If there is a power cut, your radio will resume its configuration and the AUTOMATIC RELAY function will remain active.

https://president-electronics.com/cache/documents/product/washingtonenv0.23advanceduserguide-768.pdf

 

[BC Coyote]

It's a cool feature, but I'm not sure how useful it is in the real world......
In 40 something years on the radio only a couple times have I ever said to myself "damn! I wish I had a repeater right now!". That said, I can see how it might be useful in certain geographical circumstances such as where an operator lives in a deep valley surrounded by high hills or ridges. A repeater up on one of those hills would sure be nice to have in that situation !

The downside ? I think the concept of having to have the people you're talking to on two or more different channels (depending on whether they are a direct contact or thru the repeater) is going to be hard for a lot of CB'ers to grasp.

Then there's the additional cost of more radio gear. You have your base setup, and your mobile setup each with antennas, and now you also have to buy ANOTHER radio to be a repeater up in a high place, and IT needs an antenna too! Many folks can barely afford one radio........

And on top of all that you need somewhere to house the repeater. If you have a buddy that lives on top of one of your nearby hills you're in luck, otherwise it's a big problem (no power, no infrastructure etc.)!

I wonder why this idea wasn't implemented as a simplex CB repeater such as they have in Europe & Russia. Instead of rx on one channel and tx on another, it receives a signal and then retransmits it on the SAME channel. Makes it all a lot simpler as there is only one channel in use.

 

[Pez]

It's a cool feature, but I'm not sure how useful it is in the real world......
In 40 something years on the radio only a couple times have I ever said to myself "damn! I wish I had a repeater right now!". That said, I can see how it might be useful in certain geographical circumstances such as where an operator lives in a deep valley surrounded by high hills or ridges. A repeater up on one of those hills would sure be nice to have in that situation !

The downside ? I think the concept of having to have the people you're talking to on two or more different channels (depending on whether they are a direct contact or thru the repeater) is going to be hard for a lot of CB'ers to grasp.

Then there's the additional cost of more radio gear. You have your base setup, and your mobile setup each with antennas, and now you also have to buy ANOTHER radio to be a repeater up in a high place, and IT needs an antenna too! Many folks can barely afford one radio........

And on top of all that you need somewhere to house the repeater. If you have a buddy that lives on top of one of your nearby hills you're in luck, otherwise it's a big problem (no power, no infrastructure etc.)!

I wonder why this idea wasn't implemented as a simplex CB repeater such as they have in Europe & Russia. Instead of rx on one channel and tx on another, it receives a signal and then retransmits it on the SAME channel. Makes it all a lot simpler as there is only one channel in use.

I don't have one to test, but from what I can tell, it IS a simplex (parrot) repeater as you mentioned, but with the added ability to select a SPLIT / Offset - if you choose too. (It will not run in full duplex like a traditional "repeater" does.)

From the manual:

To activate the AUTOMATIC RELAY function, you must first :
- be in FM mode (see § MODE page 7)- select the RX channel. (see § CHANNEL SELECTOR page 7)
- have set a CTCSS/DCS code - in RX mandatory.(see § CODE SET page 15)
- have activated the CTCSS/DCS function (see § CTCSS/DCS page 8)
- If necessary, have configured a frequency offset using the SPLIT function(REPEATER). (see § SPLIT page16)

I am definitely interested to see one in action.

 

[Shadetree Mechanic]

It will be great when the DX starts rolling in. It will repeat the DX five minutes at a time.

 

[Pez]

It will be great when the DX starts rolling in. It will repeat the DX five minutes at a time.

If they (the DX stations) are in FM mode and they have the correct CTCSS tone, then yes. But in practice, it's not that likely. I have run a few repeaters in my time and that has never been a problem, but never say never!

 

[BC Coyote]

To activate the AUTOMATIC RELAY function, you must first :
- be in FM mode (see § MODE page 7)- select the RX channel. (see § CHANNEL SELECTOR page 7)
- have set a CTCSS/DCS code - in RX mandatory.(see § CODE SET page 15)
- have activated the CTCSS/DCS function (see § CTCSS/DCS page 8)
- If necessary, have configured a frequency offset using the SPLIT function(REPEATER). (see § SPLIT page16)

I am really happy about this part ! Having it be FM mode only and only with CTCSS set is going to rule out the vast majority of regular CB'ers having any interest in it.
My big concern, as with Shadetree above, was skip and the village idiots being rebroadcast all across the land.................
That's also really cool about it being able to function as either a semi-duplex or simplex repeater depending on the setup.

I suspect the BIG users of these repeater radios are going to end up being taxi companies and other commercial users in places like Mexico, Brazil and Argentina where CB is very common and FM is already in heavy use.
As I mentioned above, CB simplex repeater systems have existed in Europe and Russia for decades and the primary users there are commercial interests as well (mostly taxi's and delivery companies).

 

[Onelasttime]

For what they will want for this I am holding out for true NPC, eSSB, Digital Modes, PC or Android interface 100%, DSP and EQ on RX and TX, user definable audio and tx bandwidt and not at all FCC Part 95 compliant! Anything else is a "Why Bother". Shake $hit up and give me a good HF rig at a low price of get out of the game!

 

[Big Kahuna]

Got a hold of a washington and have been playing around a bit testing it. I converted it and tried the split function but it doesn't seem to work in either ham mode or export mode so not sure what is up with that.

I was testing out the automatic relay function. It mentions having a split which would be ideal - have it RX on one channel and TX on another - but when I get it all set up it just seems to TX on the same channel it receives even when I have the split enabled in the menu. So not sure what I'm doing wrong or if that's just the way it works. Perhaps the split is disabled in export mode but since mine isn't working even after a reset and ham mode not sure if maybe it's just my radio.

The automatic relay function is basically just a repeat parrot function if the split won't work, you transmit, it receives and basically records and then as soon as the signal is gone it re-transmits the audio back out. You have to use a DCS or CTCCS code on the TX radio and the RX president to make it work though, any signal without the code won't trigger the repeat.

The repeating is just kind of annoying though because you TX and then you hear yourself back when you're done, so not a great relay scenario. I really wish I could get the split function part going for it to act more like a repeater but I can't seem to get the split to work, even in ham mode.

Other than that, radio is much like the George, I like the NRC and great SSB audio once you do a couple little tweaks in the service menu (but beware I've heard from some others that people are bricking their radios by messing in the service menu - killing it, likeyl they are running at max output). People will like the output adjustment choices. Kinda cool you can set the different levels, have it act like a CB or a high power export.

This radio has a recorder so all those guys that use to love having a noise toy installed with a button will love that function. You can record anything and then just press a button and the radio will play it.

 

[Big Kahuna]

Did a system reset and then the split started working so not sure what I was doing wrong. Split works in all modes. Relay works in FM only but does work with Split function so it can act like a repeater. It only works if you have a CTCSS or DCS code set up. Not sure what happens if two people try to key up at the same time to activate the relay, haven't tested that yet