Comments in the text.
At 02:49 PM 02/22/07, you wrote:
"Tony L." <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>[EMAIL PROTECTED] wroteÂ…
The number of active ham repeaters in my area is way, way down in
comparison to levels of 10 years ago. It isn't uncommon to monitor a
repeater frequency and hear no traffic for weeks. Some clubs &
individuals have just walked away from coordinated pairs.
However, there are a few repeaters that have remained active, although
certainly not to the extent they were in the past. Interestingly, even
though traffic is way down, there's still a waiting list in my area for
coordinated pairs on all bands.
Questions:
1) Has there been a decline in traffic and the number of active
repeaters in your area?
2) If so, what do you feel the primary cause is?
3) What can be done to generate renewed interest?
Shorty K6JSI answers:
1) Some repeaters yes, our repeaters, no.
2) Cell phones, Ipod, computers, 100s of TV channels, etc.
3) Bring in young people to the hobby. Make
your repeater interesting to younger people. Do
things they enjoy doing. Make being on the air more desirable to them.
I own and operate the Western Intertie Network,
or the WIN System. We have 44 repeaters linked
together 24/7, with lots of activity. We are in
13 States and Three Countries. Since 2000 we
have averaged 60 new members a year (at $120 a year dues).
And no, that's not a typo. Fourty-four separate repeaters. Plus the
point-to-point RF links. Almost all are 100w UHF Mastr IIs, some
are MVPs. Most of the link radios are MVPs.
Make it interesting and they will come. You are
competing with a lot of splashy media out there,
but nothing is as exciting as good two way
communications through your own hand held
radio. Make the younger generation realize that.
Jeff (Shorty) Stouffer, K6JSI
Home: 760/ 724-4020
Cell: 760/ 716-7033
The WIN System
The American Red Cross
winsystem.org
flataudio.com
Western Intertie Network
www.winsystem.org
That web site above is worth looking over. Some of the
coverage maps will astound the east coast folks.
One of the things that the groups does is have monthly
breakfasts where everybody is welcome, licensed or not.
For a long time the San Diego breakfast was at a family-
owned restaurant that didn't have breakfast hours - the
normal Saturday hours were 11am to 1am. Somebody
talked to the owner and convinced him to have a cook
and two waitresses come in at 8am and do a buffet
breakfast just for the WinSystem....
a crowd of over 30 folks each month made it worth it.
Another is to have an IRLP reflector nailed up 7x24.
Anybody can punch up reflector 9453 and join in.
Especially for the INSOMNIAC NET...
7 nights a week, 11:00 PM Pacific Time ... Every night
all of Southern California and portions of the known world
via IRLP.
There are regular checkins from Down Under, and Europe.
You can also listen via the streaming audio
available at
<http://www.winsystem.org/Downloads/Streaming_Audio/streaming_audio.html>
While 11pm Pacific is probably way to late (early?) for
most of the folks reading this there is no reason that
you couldn't "take a listen" some night with a tape
recorder tied to the Line Out jack on your computer's
sound card (listening to the streamed audio). Then
play the tape on your way to work...
And the WinSystem and the Insomniac Net welcomes
the scanner folks... I don't check in to that net too often,
maybe 2-4 times a month, but remember hearing the net
control acknowledge the scanner folks that emailed their
answers to the trivia questions to the net control during
the net.
Shorty puts out a regular emailed newsletter and has a
paragraph of text on each new member - I remember
reading that several of them went out and got their tech
class licenses due to just that kind of encouragement.
And in answer to the posed questions, I will state that thirty
years ago several 2m repeaters in this area had PTT times
measured in the 5 to 10 hours per day range, depending on
day of the week. I'd be very surprised if today they are over
15 hours per month range. Some have joined interlinked
systems and while their hours may be similar the content
is redundant to other systems... i.e. 5 repeaters with 1/5 the
total users still have the same airtime.
Cellphones are the major cost. The "entrance fee" to ham
radio is the time to get the license, the effort to learn
something (the technology) that is totally foreign to most
folks (how many adults can actually program a VCR or a
TiVo?) then add the cost of the radios.
A cellphone is a signature on a form and $30 per month.
Plus it's reasonably secure - which a ham radio is definitely
not.
One reason that nobody has mentioned is that the sweetheart
site deals are dying off. Back in the 60s and 70s, end even into
the early 80s you could get a good site by having one person that
knew a site owner make a phone call.
One of my first sites was acquired that way - a friend made a phone
call and I was allowed to drop a "J" cabinet in a corner of a building,
and to use an abandoned 1/2" heliax and mount a 4-pole on the
bottom crossmember of the tower at 20 feet up.
Over the next 6 months I learned a LOT - like what desense was, and
how an impedance mismatch between the transmitter and the duplexer
and radically affect the duplexer performance... and just how much loss
RG174 really has at UHF... and that spiral insulator heliax makes a great
conduit for rainwater... I found out just how much water a duplexer holds...
Looking back I think the arrangement was more for me to learn than
anything else... the repeater certainly wasn't very usable by anyone
for the first 6 months... and the equipment I started with wasn't much...
Well all the good (and not so good) sites are now owned by nationwide
conglomerates that are run by accountants, with site managers that
are more bill collector than radio tech.... (ever
try to explain to an accountant
why a 931mhz paging transmitter needs a circulator and a pass cavity?).
Nobody has the desire or the ability do a freebie.
The individual that owns a site and sees a chance to let someone with
a knack for electronics learn something while having fun with 25 year
old radios that were slated for the junk pile is long gone.
The tax laws have changed. The rules that let a site owner
donate floor space (i.e. a space for a rack) to the local ham
club ARES or RACES repeater and take a full-price tax
deduction on it are gone. No more freebies in exchange for
a "thanks for the donation" letter on club letterhead.
So-so sites that used to be available in exchange for trimming
weeds around the building every 4 weeks are now $200 a month
or more plus proof of $1.5 million in insurance, with the beneficiary
being the site company. On top of that at most sites you have to hire
a specific professional tower climber - and some charge $250 or more
for the first two hours, plus $75 to $100 per hour after that (all the
more reason to put up a DB224 and 7/8 inch heliax, and be able to
ignore it for 25 years).
And have you priced out Heliax recently? Raw copper has
quadrupled in price over the last 3 years, manufactured
copper products are even higher. There are stories about AM
stations having their ground radial systems vandalized for the
scrap value. Within the last month an incident occurred at
a local 4-tower directional AM station where every bit of outside
copper disappeared. To quote the chief engineer "it looked
as if a vacuum cleaner with copper affinity had gone through
the array: All buried radial wires were pulled out of the ground
along with the 4" wide tower interconnecting straps, and even
on the towers themselves the copper wires were stripped off."
The average ham can't afford the site rent much less mounting
a new antenna, or replacing the feedline if it goes bad (or gets
stolen).
More and more clubs are falling apart as soon as they get
the "Hi, the site has been sold, we are the new owners,
your $200 per year rent is now $200 per month" letter. Or
even $300 per month.
Mike WA6ILQ
