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Benefits of sponsoring a repeater?	Reply
by N8BHL on May 1, 2008	Mail this to a friend!
Hi all. Our small club has been asked to take on sponsorship of a local repeater. It won't involve a lot of technical work, maintenance will be done by the owner. Curious to hear your advice pro and con. What are the benefits to the club? What are the pitfalls? Thanks, all!

RE: Benefits of sponsoring a repeater?	Reply
by N0FPE on June 8, 2008	Mail this to a friend!
So the club will not own the repeater? But will foot all the bills for its operation? sounds like a great idea for the owner and a bad idea for the club. what happens if the club upgrades all the equipment and then the owner decides he doesnt want to play anymore? He takes HIS repeater and goes home!!!! I would pass unless there are some very very good WRITTEN agreements.

RE: Benefits of sponsoring a repeater?	Reply
by W3LK on June 8, 2008	Mail this to a friend!
I'm with Dan. The expense of operating and maintaining a repeater system can run into the thousands of dollars a year if you are not careful. I wouldn't touch this deal with a ten-foot pole For a start, your club needs for the owner to produce documented evidence of the yearly expenses, age and condition of all equipment associated with the repeater and so forth. If the owner hesitates more than 30 seconds at this request, I'd drop the idea in a hurry. It sounds like the owner is looking for the radio equivalent of a "sugar daddy". 73, Lon - W3LK Naugatuck, Connecticut

RE: Benefits of sponsoring a repeater?	Reply
by W5ESE on June 9, 2008	Mail this to a friend!
I'll take the devil's advocate position on this. It's not always easy to find someone to work on and maintain repeaters. It appears you have someone in your area that is willing and capable of doing that. If your club doesn't own a repeater, and it feels that having access to one would be a benefit to the membership, chipping in a few bucks periodically to help maintain an existing privately-owned one could provide a genuine service to the membership and at a reasonable cost. The repeater owner may be just trying to encourage people to make use of a project that he's invested alot of effort in. I would not have an issue with contributing a few dollars myself to a private repeater owner for repeater improvements and maintenance for their repeaters that I enjoy using. And it wouldn't bother me that the equipment purchased would belong the them. 73 Scott W5ESE

RE: Benefits of sponsoring a repeater?	Reply
by W3LK on June 9, 2008	Mail this to a friend!
Scott: Without knowing just what the "sponsorship" of the repeater entails, all we are doing is making educated guesses and they may be way off base - in either direction. :) Still, knowing what it costs the Baltimore ARC to keep its system on the air, I can attest that the cost of the "sponsorship" can easily overwhelm a small club's budget. I would not recommend a club footing the bills for any repeater the club does not own or at least control. I'd be interesting in hearing just what the owner of the system in question has in mind. It might turn out to be a good deal all the way around ... or not. 73, Lon - W3LK Naugatuck, Connecticut

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