RADIO REPEATER ARCHITECTURE

A site architecture for a trunked radio frequency communications system provides better fault tolerance capabilities than are available from architectures including redundant hardware. During normal system operations, a primary site controller 410 performs most or all system control functions while signal processing functions are performed in a distributed manner by trunking cards 400, 402... associated with individual repeater channel receivers and transmitters. If the site controller 410 fails, the trunking cards also begin performing trunking and other control functions. The trunking cards cease attempting to communicate with the failed site controller, and begin communicating directly with one another via a high speed backup serial link. Through the distributed processing routines performed by the various trunking cards and interaction between the trunking cards over the backup serial link, trunking and other capabilities are maintained even though the primary site controller has failed (although advanced features such as call logging and the like are lost). Because trunking capability is maintained, failure of the primary site controller has little or no effect on ongoing communications and is virtually transparent to mobile unit operators.