> We have some on our repeater frequency, that just like to kerchunk > the repeater to hear it come back or ID. Is there any way we can > eliminate this annoying situation? I suspect that we may have > an unlicensed individual with a 2meter radio.
This actually isn't technology, it's psychology. Consider this: A guy, either licensed or unlicensed, got himself a radio but doesn't have lots of reasons to get active, either because he does't know the crowd, is new, perhaps not licensed (yet!) or just because he wants to test access to the repeater. You and I, each with more than 20 years of experience, know what to expect; for someone new, this is cause of concern and something to explore. Asking for a report may be difficult - perhaps because he doesn't know the group of people that all seem to know eachother for years, perhaps he looks up to the user community, perhaps the license thing sits in the way. The easiest way to get what he wants, is just to kerchunk the repeater. So that's what he does. There are 4 things to do: 1. Make the kerchunk event as non-disruptive as possible. Make sure the repeater's response is there, but as non-intrusive as possible. My machines just have a 500 ms hangtime; if people kerchunk, they just hear the plop when they unkey, know that the repeater still works, and be done with it. Certainly, no roger beeps, bloops, ID's or significant hangtime. Just enough response to allow for testing and be done with it. (Dutch regulations allow me to periodically ID; hence, I don't need to make this dependent on user activity and, as you'd guessed, the ID thing is completely independent of activity, be it kerchunkers or regular users). 2. Believe it or not, make kerchunking easy. One of the machines I manage, used to have a "speech detector". Kerchunkers, instead of quietly keying the microphone, were supposed to ID. They were supposed to, but what happened was that people would whistle, rub the grill of the microphone or do something else to circumvent the "speech detector". When the machine got renovated, I removed this misfeature, allowing just plain carrier, and the user community picked it up quickly, supposedly because the other machines work like this. Again: kerchunking is going to happen. Make it easy, minimize it's impact, and make it a non-event and be done with it. 3. Don't talk about abuse issues. Never, ever, mention the kerchunker. This, and the rationale behind it, should be known to members of this group; check the abuse files for the reasons behind it. 4. Create a friendly, inviting environment where newcomers feel themselves welcome. With luck, the kerchunker(s) will join the community and become a valuable addition to your user group. I know this has happened several times on my machines, and I do consider this a feature. 73, Geert Jan PE1HZG janitor, PI3EHV, PI2EHV, PI6EHN, PI8EHV
