
118 System Components and Topologies
November, 2008
3.2.2 Repeater Mode
There are a few reasons why a customer may require a repeater in their system. The first is, if the
required coverage area is large, they may require strategically located high power repeaters in
order to cover all of their operating space. Even if their required coverage area is small, due to
geographical limitations such as mountains, valleys or man made obstructions, they may still need
multiple high power repeaters to reach all the coverage areas. They also may need the extra
bandwidth a repeater offers. One channel may not be able to support a large number of users;
therefore additional channels may be required.
In many of these cases, the insertion of a MOTOTRBO repeater can alleviate the problems with
minimum additional cost. Such a repeater is transparent to field radio communications. They just
select the required channel using their channel selector, and continue their normal
communications. However, as in most conventional systems, if the repeater coverage does not
overlap, the user needs to know his location, and switch to the other channel when required.
Even just having one MOTOTRBO repeater provides increased user capacity. The digital repeater
operates in TDMA which essentially divides one channel into two virtual channels in digital mode;
therefore the user capacity doubles. Without the repeater, this TDMA synchronization is not
possible. The repeater utilizes embedded signaling to inform the field radios of the status of each
channel (time slot). It informs the field radios of each channel’s busy/idle status, the type of traffic,
and even the source and destination information.
Another advantage during digital operation is error detection and correction. The further a
transmission travels, the more interference it encounters, and inevitably more errors are
introduced. The receiving MOTOTRBO radio, operating in digital mode, utilizes built-in error
detection and correction algorithms, native to the protocol, to correct these problems. The
MOTOTRBO repeater uses the same algorithms to correct the errors prior to retransmission, thus
repairing any errors that occur on the uplink; it then transmits the repaired signal on the downlink.
This greatly increases the reliability and audio quality in the system, which increases the
customer’s coverage area.
In digital mode, the repeater only retransmits digital signals from radios configured with the same
system identifier. This aids in preventing co-system interference. The repeater does not block
transmissions of radios within its own system.
As previously described, the repeater utilizes embedded signaling to announce the current status
of each channel. It is up to the radios in the field to interpret these signals, and grant or deny their
user’s request for transmission. Therefore, when a user or a group of users utilizes a channel (time
slot), the repeater announces that the channel is being used and who is using it. Only radios that
are part of that group are allowed to transmit. The repeater additionally allows a short duration of
reserved time after a transmission. This allows other users in the group to respond to the
originator. This reserved hang time greatly increases the continuity of calls, because new calls
cannot start until the previous call ends. Without this feature, users may experience delays in
responses (that is, between transmissions of calls), due to other calls taking over the channel in-
between their transmissions.
After this reserved hang time, the repeater stays active for a short period of time, and offers an
opportunity for any user on the system to transmit or start a new call. If no user transmits for a
duration of time, the repeater stops transmitting. When the next radio transmission occurs, the
repeater starts repeating again.
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