Lets make repeaters popular again.

Have you noticed most amateur radio repeater usage had dropped to almost nothing these past years? Most people will tell you it was due to cell phones. I will admit that these modern communication devices are convent, easy to use, and no special license is required but it makes no sense that Hams would abandon use of the repeaters in their area after obtaining a cell phone. Comparing use of amateur radio repeaters and cell phones is like comparing apples and oranges. They both taste great and everyone likes them but they have nothing in common except being fruit. The major problem with most repeaters is the requirement of an access tone transmitted with your signal in order to activate it. When 2-meters started getting overpopulated with repeaters tone access was a quick bandage to reduce problems, it was not a solution. Repeater clubs and owners started using tone access as well for their repeaters thinking it was a "fashionable" thing to do. All new amateur transceivers came with tone access features so most Hams thought it was just standard operating practice to add tone access even if they rarely or ever had problems with a neighboring repeater operating on the same frequency pair. This is what effectively started the slide into disuse of most amateur radio repeaters. Why?

I am sure there are other problems but these are the only ones I could think of when writing this. Add your own problems in the comments section!

The first thing that needs to be taken care of is the overpopulation of repeaters. A coordination group needs to be formed to geographically determine which repeaters are required and which are duplicitous and not required for the area they cover. This will remove the requirement to use tone access on the repeater to hide coordination problems. I know eliminating repeaters is going to cause personally problems for clubs and groups. Every repeater club or group wants there own repeater but there is a geographic limit, which was not only reached but also exceeded years ago.

Considering how little use most of them have now clubs and groups could easily share a repeater. These groups need not listen to each other by using tone control differently than it's being done now. This is very simply done and the repeater needs neither special equipment nor even tone control in it's own circuits. Each group picks or is assigned an unused tone and programs that tone into their transceiver for both transmit and receive. This way you need not listen to the repeater when being used by a different group.

The way this works is group "A" programs their groups tone for transmit and receive. Their transceiver only responds to signals on the repeater carrying that tone. Unless someone in your group is using the repeater your transceiver will stay quiet. Group "B" can use the repeater without disturbing members of group "A" or any other group using a different tone. Of course if you don't program any tone in your transceiver then you will hear all activity on the repeater. This allows emergency groups to use the repeater as well. No one wants to be awakened by rag chewers around midnight to the wee hours of the morning! Your emergency group is assigned an unused tone so the only time your transceiver makes a noise is when the repeater is being used for the emergency call up and use. Typically, you would program two memory channels for that repeater. One with tone control of both transmit and receive and one without tone control. This allows easy access to the repeater when you want to hear everything going on and transmit to anyone without tone squelch programmed in his or her transceiver. Of course, none of this is possible if your repeater requires an access tone!

Groups could consist of just family members or hundreds of emergency responders. Linking to other repeaters also becomes easy for your repeater users. Just have the link repeater programmed to only respond to an assigned tone and program it with the same tone in its transmitted signal. Now instead of the link repeater responding to everything after it's been activated it only responds to a single tone.

Limiting a single repeater to a geographic area forces clubs and groups to share a single repeater, which can spread it's cost among the groups using it and thus lowering its cost per user. Several low budget repeaters operating in the same geographic area can be eliminated and a single super repeater with all the options takes their place making for a better system. It also promotes use by groups that would not normally use a repeater. A DX or contest group could use the repeater to alert other group members of a rare stations call and frequency without disturbing other repeater users.