WEBVTT

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Hey, before we get started,
be sure to head over to Ham Radio

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two dot com forward slash email dash
sign up to join my email list of

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over nineteen thousand subscribers, where I
like to send emails about upcoming events,

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upcoming shopping deals, keep you updated
with all the stuff going on with my

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videos. Once that list reaches twenty
thousand, I will be doing a giveaway

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of another HF radio sign up today
and thank you for the support. Why

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have your local analog Ham radio repeaters
suddenly gone silent? I put up a

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video a few weeks ago about this
very subject, and wow, you guys

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had a lot of very excellent comments
on that subject. I really appreciate everyone

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coming buy the channel and commenting on
that video and saying what they thought about

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repeaters in their area. Turns out
a lot of the areas have repeaters that

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are active, and that's great.
I think you guys should keep that going,

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keep it active, and keep doing
what you're doing. Okay, some

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comments say that their areas have not
had active repeaters in years, and that's

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where I issued my challenge and said, well, key up your repeaters once

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a day or one to two times
a week and just throw your call sign

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out and see if you can create
some activity on these repeaters to go to

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get them more active and get them
more useful. But a couple of the

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comments kind of had a theme to
it, and I want to discuss those

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with you today. So there's a
theme to a couple of these comments that

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I personally don't agree with, but
I would like very much to hear what

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you guys think about this. Now. I'm not trying to call anyone out.

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I'm not trying to troll anyone.
I'm just trying to be honest about

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some of these comments. And I
picked out three of these comments, and

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I would value your comment in this
video below, So let me know what

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you think by commenting on this video. But I wanted to respond to a

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couple of these comments because they're all
kind of the same thing. This person

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says, I don't operate VHF,
UHF or use repeaters. Tried it once

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thirty years ago, but then decided
HF was more fun. I think probably

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the problem with inactive repeaters is a
generational shift. That might be true.

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FT eight on HF now carries the
line's share of HAM activity. Cell phones

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took the magic out of repeaters years
ago, and the generation that developed and

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popularized repeaters is dying off. Well, first of all, I think so

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the HF thing, He's not the
only one to make this comment about HF

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or more people on HF, more
people are, less people are on repeaters,

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more people on HF. I don't
think that's a thing. Okay.

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I think if you're if you're trading
one for the other, then you're missing

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out on what HAM radio actually is
about. Okay, because I think you,

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well, you can do both.
Okay. Now, are you driving

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to work every day and when you
get in your car and go places,

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when you drive around town and run
errands, are you talking on HF mobile

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then okay? Then okay, Okay, hopefully you're not doing FT eight mobile

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okay, or if you are,
you just kind of got it clicking over

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here where you're not looking at the
screen of the tablet or computer while you're

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driving. Okay. But to each
I guess I'm not gonna tell you how

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to drive. So the point is
that why are you not using repeaters during

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drive time? But yeah, home
too. If you're doing a lot of

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HF at home, and if you're
doing HF mobile, then okay, but

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these are two very different areas of
HAM radio, and I don't think you

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should say I'm not I don't use
this one because I use this one.

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If you don't enjoy VHFUHF, then
okay, that's one thing that's a totally

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different subject. If you just don't
enjoy talking on FM repeaters, fine,

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fine, it's not for everybody,
Okay. The great thing about HAM radio

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is there's so many things inside of
HAM radio you can do. Find the

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thing that you enjoy and do that. Okay, even if you never pick

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up a microphone at all, find
the thing that you enjoy and do that.

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So I don't really get the whole
HF thing, you know, I

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think you can do both. I
do HF. I do HF from the

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shack, I do PoTA, But
I also talk on repeaters when I'm driving

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around town in my truck. When
I'm on road trips, I'll use mobile

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HF. But generally speaking, I
don't use mobile HF if I'm just driving

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around town, running errands, going
short distances and that kind of thing.

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But the thing that really the theme
we're going to talk about here today is

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cell phones took the magic out of
repeaters years ago, and the generation that

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developed and popularized repeaters is dying off. That last part's probably true because repeaters

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became popular sometime in the nineteen sixties. A lot of these police and police

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and fire departments started dumping their FM
repeaters and they crossbanded to amateur they covered

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amateur radio bands. That's why you
see a lot of these ge Master two

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repeaters that are still in use today, fifty sixty years later. These repeaters

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are still working. Back in the
sixties, they had wide band, a

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lot of them were starting to go
nuroband analog, a lot of them were

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starting to go to like a scrambled
system back then, and they started dumping

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these repeaters, these older repeaters,
from newer repeaters. And that's a lot

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of the times how we got our
initial FMM radio repeaters. So a big

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story behind that that I'm not including
here. We can talk more about that

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later. But my comment to this
guy was strange. I'm not aware of

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a cell phone where you can doll
a number and talk to a dozen people

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all at once. I guess you
could. You could set up a party

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line. Okay, party lines back
in the sixties and seventies on your telephone,

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okay, your regular landline telephone long
before cell phones. I guess you

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could set up a party line,
or you could connect to a zoom conference

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and you and all your buddies driving
to work together in the morning could talk

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to one another on this zoom conference
that you probably have password protected and no

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one has the link for except your
little group there. And if that's what

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you want to do, then perfect
do that. But I don't think relating

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cell phones to repeater activity is accurate. Sure, sure, yeah, if

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you have an emergency now, you
can pick up the cell phone, you

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say, Man, I had a
flat tire, I was in an automobile

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accident. I'm not. No one's
hurt, hopefully, that kind of thing.

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Yeah, But I'm talking about just
regular driving to work back and forth,

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driving around town back and forth,
talking on your repeater, using the

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repeater during storm outages, during storm
watches, during bad weather events. These

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are the things that repeaters are still
great for that you can't really do with

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a cell phone because you can only
generally die one person at the time with

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the cell phone. So who are
you gonna call ghost? Okay, Well,

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that's cool. Sometimes happens, someone
has to deal with it, and

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who are you gonna call? But
I mean, the repeater is far reaching.

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Everyone turned on a radio in your
area and everyone was monitoring a repeater

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in your city or your county.
Then everyone could talk back to you,

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and when you said something, everyone
would hear it, not just the one

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person on the other end of your
cell phone. The next comment I got

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says, I think that it may
have to do with cell phones. Again,

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I don't. I kind of see
where you're coming from this, but

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I don't really agree with it.
And I'm trying to explain why in this

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video. Back in the day,
people would get their licenses just for access

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to repeaters for auto patch emergencies.
And then the next comment says, bingo

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hit the nail on the head,
and the third comment says, that was

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a big part of my motivation.
I talked on auto patches back in the

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day. I used to call I
was in college when I got my first

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ham radio license. I used to
call my mom on the repeater and she

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didn't I had to explain to her, don't talk when I'm talking because it's

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half duplex. But it was fun
to do. And yeah, emergencies cool,

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Yeah, that's that's cool. Also, if that's your motivation for getting

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your hand radio license, then great, awesome. But if that's the only

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reason you ever use the repeaters,
you missed out on a lot of things.

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I don't think that this is true. I was surprised to see two

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people comment to this and say,
oh, yeah, that's me, that's

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me, that's me. I've never
personally talked to anyone where they say that

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the only reason they talked on repeaters
was to use the phone patch. A

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lot of the repeaters in my area
didn't even have phone patches. The major

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ones did. The major club repeaters
had phone patches back in the day.

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I think a couple of them still
have a phone patch, honestly. But

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to use repeaters solely for the purpose
of a phone patch or access to a

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phone patch, I think you miss
out on a lot of really cool features

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of a repeater system. Now,
if you're interested in getting your amateur radio

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license for the use of a repeater, you may not know. If you

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don't have a license, then there's
three levels of license in the USA.

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The technician is the first license,
and with a technician you can use all

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these repeaters we're talking about. And
if you're interested in doing that, I

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just you go over to hamradioprep dot
com check out their full line of classes

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for all three levels of amateur radio
license inside the United States. They have

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a Bowfang's Basics class. They have
an HF a new to HF class HF

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Basics Class. You can save a
twenty percent discount on all of their plans

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with the coupon code of Jason twenty
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smartphone for free. So grab your
smartphone right now. If you're interested in

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getting licensed for the first time or
getting your upgrade, download Ham Radio Prep

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00:08:28.800 --> 00:08:33.759
on iOS or Android play a Google
play store. Get started for free today,

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00:08:33.759 --> 00:08:37.200
and thank you Ham Radio Prep for
sponsoring this channel and the last time

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we'll talk about today, says I
wonder if cell phones and emails have created

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this repeater silence during the time when
making landline calls to other near areas where

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long distances were more expensive. That's
not a complete sentence, but I get

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what you're saying. I wonder if
that was when the repeaters were used more

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often. Okay, okay, once
again, there's probably some bearing to that.

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There's probably some true to that.
I'm not saying that this is a

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wrong sentiment. In fact, you're
probably right. You can't really unless you

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had linked repeater systems which were not
linked over the internet back then. Then

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you couldn't really call out of your
calling area to where a long distance thing

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was. But you could call through
a phone patch and get some stuff like

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that and call you couldn't. I
don't think you could dial long distance on

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most phone patches. Those were mainly
used for emergencies. If you broke down

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somewhere, you need to call someone
to come get you. Now here's the

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thing. If you break down somewhere
today and you don't have smartphone coverage for

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whatever reason, you don't really need
a phone patch if people are monitoring the

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repeater. If you call out on
a repeater and you say, hey,

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KC five hw use your own call
sign KC five HWB, I've got a

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minor emergency. My vehicle's broken down
and I can't call anyone. Is anyone

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monitoring the repeater that it has access
to a phone. I've done some rescue

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stories on this channel about HF operators
out in the middle of nowhere that broke

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down or got one guy got stuck
in the mud, at Big Bend,

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and they use HF radio to call
back to a HAM radio operator, so

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the HAM radio operator could pick up
the phone and call emergency services in that

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area, or call their family,
or call somebody and let them know where

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they were. Okay, So that's
still a thing. So even if you

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don't have access to a smartphone,
a cell phone or a phone patch,

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you can call on the repeater and
hopefully if we can get repeaters more active

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again, which if in case you
haven't figured it out yet, my goal

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here is to get your repeater more
active. I would love to be able

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to drive through your area and talk
to you on your repeater, but I

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can't do that everywhere. We can
do linked repeaters via all Star, and

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if you're interested in all Star,
connect to my node four three one three

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six. It's running twenty four to
seven. We've got some cool updates that

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are coming to that soon. But
I monitor that node system most not every

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day, but most every day.
But I also try to key up my

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local repeaters most days to get more
activity on there. In fact, i'm

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monitoring this repeater that I'm monitoring right
now is a Hearst repeater on NOPE right

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there I can't see it and see
it. I'm monitoring one seven. The

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Hurst Amateur Radio Club repeater. Hurst
is one of the ones that does a

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lot of these classes that are on
my channel. They have some pretty good

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activity on the repeater every afternoon,
and I was talking to some guys here

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earlier just this morning, and then
the Uless repeater are the one that I'm

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mostly on four forty two nine hundred. Several of you commented on that last

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video and said you were going to
try that repeater next time you're in the

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area, So do that. Let
me know in the comments below what you

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think about phone patches and cell phones. I don't think they were Yeah,

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they were a slight detriment to why
the repeaters are silent, but again they're

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not the same thing. A cell
phone's a great tool to have, carry

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it with you everywhere. Do that, but you can talk to a larger

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group of people over a larger area
that are all in your local area experiencing

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the same traffic delays, experiencing the
same storms, the same tornadoes, the

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same tornado watch, the same radar
watch, the same storm warnings. You

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can you can communicate to a wider
area of people more quickly and effectively than

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poking up the cell phone and calling
twelve or fifteen different people in separate phone

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calls to talk about what's going on
in your area. Please comment blow let

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me know what you think about this
and if you liked this video, I've

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got more videos about this subject that
I will link over here. Seventy three

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guys, Thanks for watching today,