Nate: Good solution suggesting that others interject their own topics into the conversation. I would add that, from the perspective of a long-time repeater owner operator, it's nice to see your resources getting used. It's also nice to have them available to a wide range of users and to find ways to make that happen. For a repeater, it's relatively non-invasive to those hogging the repeater to tell them it's OK to use the system for long periods of time as long as they leave time for breaks and announce their willingness to accept other stations periodically. That should be cloaked in a need to permit priority traffic as needed. Since you're asking them for procedural changes that result in inclusion rather than seeming to chase them away, they're more likely to be compliant. Once you achieve that, it's a simple matter to nudge a few other operators to jump in periodically to help keep things mixed up. If the system hogs don't follow the procedures, then you have a good excuse to give them a hard time rather than just complain they're using it too much.
Chuck On Wed, 4 Jun 2008, Nate Duehr wrote: > Randy wrote: > > > The complaints have been that the same one > > or two people are constantly rag chewing at literally all hours of > > the day and night and go on forever. I know these are open to the > > ham community and anyone has a perfect right to use them. I > > personally have had no problem with it; they seem like nice, friendly > > people. I also know running a reflector on our local repeater is an > > optional thing. I just hate to stop doing it because I think it can > > be a good thing. Like I said, I hate to say anything at all. > > However, when I get no less than 15 emails and 3 phone calls in the > > past week complaining, I must act. I cannot imagine other cities > > doing what we have been doing are not getting similar complaints. > > First you have to ask yourself... are the complainers participating or > just listening? > > They have the "power" to change the topic of conversation by simply > keying up their mics and speaking. Want a tech topic? Bring one up.
