Hello, and happy new you to you all.
Repeaterbook has had a very busy, and successful 2017. We have begun many projects, and our primary goal for 2018 is enhancing the user experience. You may have noticed the look and feel around the site changing a little, and if you are using a mobile device, have found that the pages show a little nicer for you there, too.
We recently put out a question on the Facebook group, at the suggestion of one of our admins, asking if they thought it would be beneficial to have the site alert them when a repeater had been added, deleted, or edited in a certain area. The response was overwhelmingly positive.
Annually, Repeaterbook.com processes more than 18,000 repeater adds, edits, and deletes. That's a lot of change, and you want to know when these changes happen, so you can keep your radio programming current. What good is a memory in your radio if it tries to key up a dead repeater? What if the CTCSS code changed? And you certainly don't want to miss that new repeater that just went operational. You could memorize our database (40,000 repeaters) and then check back every so often to see what changed, or, you can let us just shoot you an email and let you know when it happens.
Introducing the RepeaterBook Subscription module, giving you the power to receive information about the updates to repeaters you care about, right to your inbox.
First, a little about the development work on the project. We initially designed it to allow you to subscribe to a US state, Mexican state, or Canadian province. Ron Kahler asked if it could be designed to allow him to just pick the counties he was interested in to avoid seeing updates from around the whole state. So, we added it where you could select as many counties as you wanted. So, naturally we added refining to a single band.
Then we got a suggestion from Cory Sickles who wanted to see only the updated for DV modes. So, we added a filter for the DV modes, and another if you just want FM analog as well.
Then Tony Toews had a fantastic idea. Why not make it so that you could get information back within a certain area that ignored political boundaries like states and counties? This was genius. Here in Portland, Oregon, we are bordered to the north by Vancouver, Washington. So, I designed it so that you could pick something like “Portland, OR” and set a radius of 50 miles. This would give you all the updated repeaters in that area, regardless of the county or state. You would pick up repeaters in Oregon and into Washington. Imagine selecting “Chicago, IL” at 50 miles and picking up repeaters in Wisconsin and Indiana, with a single subscription. This also opened up the service to the rest of the world, so you could also subscribe to 35 miles around London, England (for example). Using it in Europe would ignore all country boundaries.
After two weeks of beta testing by our admins, we are ready to share this with the world!
How do I get there? There is a link on the home page along the left side called “Repeater Subscriptions.” You must be a registered user and logged on to see, and use, the module. Once you get to the module, there is a menu item: “Add Subscription.” Hover over the menu and a drop down will appear. Simply choose the subscription method you would like and fill out the form.
What is the Repeater Change Subscription System? This is the module we built to notify you when there is a repeater add, edit, or delete. You can subscribe to an entire state or province,
and if you are tracking repeaters in the United States, you can even track down to the county level. We will let you filter down the results to a specific band (do you want to know about the 1.25 meter and 6 meter changes if you don't own those radios?) or even a specific operating mode. Maybe you have a DMR radio and you want to know when a new DMR repeater pops up in an area.
How often will I get an email? Every Monday morning, we will send you a single notification about any repeaters that were updated during the last 7 days. No matter how many areas you sign up for, you will receive a single email. Depending on how many updates there were, it could be long or short. If you feel you no longer need the emails, there is an option to delete your subscription here on this page, or from the email itself. You have full control of the areas you subscribe to.
What types of changes do you report? All changes! The way we compile the list is to look at the date the repeater was added or last updated. This update date cannot be manipulated, so whenever an admin submits the add or changes, the date is set by the server. We search for all repeaters with an update within the last 7 days, and if it matches one that you subscribed to, we let you know. Not all updates have a meaningful change, or in other words, a change that affects the operation of the repeater. It may have been a minor grammar adjustment or an admin just researching the repeater and updating that it is still operational. We apologize if that confuses anyone, but we wanted to make sure you were notified any time someone touches the repeater record.
Who can use the module? Anyone with a Repeaterbook.com account can use the module. Currently, the module is only available for countries in North America. We will be adding the rest of the world and the ability to subscribe to a location and search radius in the future.