I think there are to many other activities for hams now, and hams don't get on the air much as in the past. Maybe complacency?
There are thirty six two meter repeaters listed in on the Repeater Directory in the twin city area of Minnesota. Out of those, maybe four are somewhat active. The others may have a net one night a week and then the repeater pretty much is vacant of users the rest of the week. Drive time use has fallen off for the same reason that cell phone use is discouraged in the car. Traffic is very heavy and one needs to concentrate on their driving. The clubs who have a weekly net on their repeater, do not get a lot of stations checking into the net in respect to membership. Some have ten meter and fifteen meter SSB and also CW net on fifteen meters where Tech Plus can check in. Very few that check in. There are nets on Sunday night for SSB on Six, Two, 220 and 70 cm here around the twin city area. Maybe lucky if they get ten stations to check in on Six meters and then most of those stations will also check into the two meter net. On 220, maybe three or four stations at most check in, some weeks no one answers the call for check in. 70 cm maybe four or five check in. Weekdays there is very little activity on SSB. We have had a SSTV net for almost ten years on two meter FM simplex 145.500. At times there were ten stations checking in. Part of the reason was testing Don's K0HEO WinPix Pro and WinPix 32 beta software as he lived in the twin city area. Since Don passed on so have users. The check in was down to maybe three stations on net night. Email was sent out to local clubs informing them of the SSTV net. So far we have had about four new stations check in, for how long, who knows? Try to get hams to help with bike marathons or running marathons to help with relief stations along the way, you almost have to grab hams by the collar and force them to volunteer. The Minnesota Senior Net (CW) is still looking for a permanent net control, no one has volunteered. CW traffic handling a thing of the past? So what is the answer? You can beg plead with other hams until your horse and won't do any good. My .02 cents, YMMV. Jerry - K0HZI --- In [email protected], KV9U <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Bruce, The ARRL is not generally going to ask other groups for input. It would really be a bit unethical if my organization bypasses me and goes to another organization for input. The input clearly needs to come from the membership. So the ARRL acted appropriately. What seems to be coming out of all this is that SMIRK did not act in their members best interest and ignored the FCC proposal. You do this at your own risk. So I would talk to them about this and how you can usethe organization to further your interests, just like the other groups do. Just so you know, I certainly would never support any wide band modes beyond what we now have on 6 meters or 2 meters. And that includes SS techniques which destroy the noise floor over too wide an area. However, I would like to see 6 meters used a LOT more than it is. It is frustrating to me that after all these years, with many, many, more hams with Technician Class Licenses, and with all the new amazing rigs with 6 and sometimes even 2 and 440 SSB added on, very few hams are working these bands for "local" contacts. The equipment (the really pathetic equipment) I had in 1964 to work 6 meters (and could never get it to work) is a far cry from what we have now and yet you just do not find many operators. I call every so often on 52.525 FM and 50.125 SSB with almost no contacts. Sure, when the band opens up, you can then work many stations. I know that there are very weak signal modes such as some rare EME work and more common meteor shower work so you don't want to jeopardize those areas. By the way, since I moved about 30-40 miles away from my former QTH which was centrally located to our club's Wednesday night chat net, we have tried many different HF frequencies to see what works the best for voice. We initially started on 28.400 for the last year or two but the reason for selecting 10 meter phone was so that the Tech + and Novices could be part of the group. Guess what? At no time have we ever had any of them come to the well publicized net. So recently we have been trying other bands, and 80 tends to go long and you get too many distant stations wanting to contact us, 40 and 20 are outside the NVIS range and have a weaker ground wave. Unfortunately same for 6 meters:( We thought that might work OK for direct/skywave, but very mediocre results with our mediocre antennas. The bands that really work the best are: 160 if the other stations are willing to install an antenna ... and ... 15 meters was the best "ground"/direct wave of all the bands we tried. Even with Butternut and R7 type verticals. I still can not quite figure out the reason. I sure wish I could get some of the stations to try digital, especially on 6 meters and 160 meters, but it seems nearly impossible out of 150 + hams in the greater area, we have very few that will even try digital modes at all:( 73, Rick, KV9U Need a Digital mode QSO? Connect to Telnet://cluster.dynalias.org Other areas of interest: The MixW Reflector : http://groups.yahoo.com/group/themixwgroup/ DigiPol: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Digipol (band plan policy discussion) Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/digitalradio/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/digitalradio/join (Yahoo! 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