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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is there no activity on the ham
radio repeaters near you? Here's some thoughts.

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As a follow up to a challenge
I issued earlier this year during a

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live stream and again on a couple
of videos. In early twenty twenty four,

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I issued a challenge that said,
at least once a day, maybe

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twice a day, key up your
local repeater and just throw out your call

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sign. Now, admittedly I haven't
done this myself as much as I wanted

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to, But just this morning,
about two hours ago, I got in

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the truck and I was driving out
to get a breakfast sandwich, and I

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heard someone else throw their call sign
out, and I went back to him

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and we had a ten minute conversation
on the W five E WEL repeater four

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four two dot nine hundred in Uless, Texas, which if you guys are

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in North Texas, turnover and monitor
that repeater. That's the one I'm usually

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listening to if I'm driving around in
the area. If I hear a call

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sign that I know, I will
absolutely come back to you. But if

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I hear a call sign I don't
know, I will try to come back

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to you as well. This is
another article I found on Reddit and the

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title of it caught my eye and
you can see it was posted fifteen hours

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ago at the time of this recording, and I really liked what this this

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person has to say. He's and
this is written by the real Marsupio.

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A lot of guys in here don't
give their call signs. That's okay,

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that's all right, whatever, Okay. I'm case five HWB on Reddit.

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There are quite a few amateur radio
repeaters around me, both on digital and

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analog. I will go over several
days and through throw through it, he

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says, throughout throw out my call
sign on five of the local repeaters as

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different times a day. Morning,
afternoon, evening, evening has been the

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best results, but is still once
every ten days I actually get someone during

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nets, the repeaters are active,
but during non nets they're dead. Why

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do you think this is so?
I have a thought on that. We

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do a DMR net on Wednesdays at
seven thirty on our DMR repeater system in

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Texas, which is not tied to
Brandmeister or tgif for anything else. It

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is a repeater only network as far
as I know, it's the only net

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that is run on DMR that's not
interconnected to the world. We have the

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original talk Group thirty one to forty
eight, which is the Texas state wide

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Talk Group. We have a net
at seven thirty pm Central Time every Wednesday

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night, and the only way you
can get into that net is to be

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near one of the repeaters. All
the repeaters are tied together over the Internet.

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They're tied into sea bridges, various
sea bridges here and there. But

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the only way you can get in
there is to be near low repeater and

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key up and join the net.
And we'll have anywhere from thirty five to

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forty maybe upwards of sixty check ins
a week. And if you consider that

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doesn't really include Internet connected hotspots,
that's a pretty good number, I think.

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But it's amazing to me that during
the week, there's very little activity

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on that DMR talk group, even
though there's forty fifty sixty people that'll open

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it up and key it up on
Wednesday night. So I feel your pain.

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I know a lot of a couple
of the repeater nets around here the

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same way. There's a lot of
activity on the net weekly check in,

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you turn the radio off and they
don't turn it back on till next week

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at the same net time. I
try to get people broken out of that.

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He goes on to write, it
is quite embarrassing because I'm trying to

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get a buddy in the amateur radio
and I want to demonstrate its utility.

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But every time I go to show
him boom, the repeater activity is non

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existent. It makes me look like
a fool. I know a lot of

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the guys in the local clubs use
HF more, and a percentage of those

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guys use FT eight exclusively, which
I find boring and pointless for every day

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Okaya eight and HF and repeaters are
totally separate things. But okay, okay,

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I see what he's saying. Though, I talked to buddies in other

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areas and they say, no matter
which repeater you key up around them at

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any given times, someone will always
respond and he kind of leaves it there.

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So a couple of the responses and
replies. A couple of the comments

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got me, and I especially like
one comment because it mentions the repeater challenge

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that I issued earlier this year.
So we're going to read that real quick.

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But first let me tell you.
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courses. They have over ten thousand. I think it's way more than that

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now, well into five figures number
of people licensed through the ham Radio Prep

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course. Sign up today and good
luck on your test. The very first

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comment at the top says people tend
not to answer a call sign listening type

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of transmission. I don't know if
that that's one hundred percent true. Sometimes

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it probably is, but I've had
people answer me when I don't even say

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listing. I'll just say case five
HWB mobile. That's all I say,

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tells him. I'm in the vehicle. And if you're in a vehicle,

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some of the most fun I've ever
had on repeaters is drive times, when

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you're going to and from various places. He goes on to say, ask

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a question or ask for a radio
check. That's that's terrible advice. We're

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gonna get to that in a minute. This is more likely to start something

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going. But yeah, my area
has lots of quiet repeaters. Try the

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iss APRS, Digitpeter or voice repeater, Try the FM satellites. Other than

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that, get on HF, Get
on single sideband CW. There is much

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more activity on HF. And that's
true, there is, so this guy

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responds, ask a question for real
tre Many of us who do a lot

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of repeater listening now ignore radio check
requests. Ask you for a radio check

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is unless you actually need a radio
check. Unless you're doing a test of

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your radio. Someone's told you your
audio is bad, someone's told you your

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your quality of signal is low.
Unless you actually need a radio check,

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don't ask for radio check. There's
a bunch of Brandmeister talk groups out there

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on DMR that just radio check.
Radio check radio all day long. It's

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radio check. That's one reason I
stopped listing to those dumb talk groups out

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there, because nobody really wants a
radio check, or they just well,

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sometimes they do. They want to
know that their code plug is coded correctly.

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But just get on and start talking. People will tell you for radios

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working or not. Way too many
people lean on those as a web starting

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conversation. If I answer your radio
check call, I will tell you whether

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your radio is working on and then
I'm moving on. Don't mislead the other

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station by asking for radio check when
what you want is a long winded conversation.

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This guy, the original poster replies, yeah, I'm an extra class

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hand, but I'll have enough money
right now for an HF radio, so

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I don't get on it much.
Also, why don't people reply to a

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call sign listening when that is the
acceptable way to enter a conversation. That's

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a good question. Equitable crab repeater
culture is so broken. Every new text

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is drilled in never call seek you
on the peeter, and beginners are straight

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terrified of the mic, so instead
of they just go fishing with call sign

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monitoring. Or my favorite is the
totor totally superfluous radio check. Yeah.

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When I hear call sign listening,
I assume the person has some radio buddies

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that they're hoping might call back.
Now, see, I don't I don't

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agree with that statement. When I
hear call sign listening, I assume the

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person has some radio buddies that they're
hoping we'll call back. No, when

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someone says call sign listen, if
I say k C five HWB listening,

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I'm putting out there for everybody.
If I have a buddy that I want

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to talk to, I'll call him. I'll say, hey, Frank KG

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five HJ from k C five HBB, Hey Frank, you're out there,

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or just KG five HJ from k
C five HBB. So I don't agree

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with that. I don't think call
sign listening should be synonymous with your looking

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for someone specific. And then he
says, if I hear them call twice,

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i'll know they just want to talk. Well you should know they just

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want to talk anyway. Okay,
So I think that's improper repeater etiquette and

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not etiquette meaning there's anything wrong with
that. It's just that I don't think

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your I don't think your perception of
call sign listening and expecting him that they're

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calling someone specific is accurate. I
don't think that's accurate. It's such a

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silly theater. Decades ago, these
repeaters were commodities during commute times and etiquette

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was critical. Now they sit idle
ninety nine percent of the time. Light

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them up, Try some variant of
good evening. This is call sign located

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in qth on this repeater. Are
there any other stations on frequency? But

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don't call it CQ or the ots
will get mad. Yeah, calling CQ

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on repeater is technically a faux pas. It's technically not proper etiquette. But

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I must ask this day and age, and technically speaking, if you're having

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a rag chew on one for six
dot five to two, that's not proper

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etiquette either, because one forty six
top five to two is the national FM

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calling frequency for fmsimplex on the two
meter band, so it's not a rag

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chew frequency. So technically how that
should work is you should put your call

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sign out CAC five HWB monitoring.
Somebody comes back to me and we're like,

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hey, drop down to one forty
six five hundred, let's have a

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qso and then you talk well,
this day and age, there's so little

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activity, especially during road trips,
during several hour road trips, out of

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state road trips, there's so little
activity on six top five to two.

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If I hear someone on six top
five two, I will strike up a

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conversation and talk to them for ten
minutes or fifteen minutes or an hour if

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they're in range that long. So
I don't know. Technically calling CQ on

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a repeater is wrong, But with
the lack of activity on repeaters these days,

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should we forget about that? Should
we go away from that? Should

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we not? I mean, you
shouldn't ridicule people anyway. If someone calls

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CQ on a repeater, the first
thing I think of is, well,

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this guy just got his license,
he's not used to using repeaters. Well,

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that might be a reason to go
back to him and say, hey,

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man, what's going on case five
HWB here? And then after a

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five or ten minute conversation, he
might start asking you questions. He might

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recognize that your call signs older.
He might ask you how long you've been

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licensed, And then you can say, oh, by the way, yeah,

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we don't we're not really supposed to
call CQ on the repeater, It's

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not a big deal, but some
people who are just grouchy and belong on

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the qraz forums. Those guys might
kind of yell at you, But no

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big deal because you and I are
having a conversations now this one comment here

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to a comment to a comment,
reply to a comment. Who are these

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no CQ police and where did they
get their radio badges? Question mark?

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I say, get on there and
say CQ two or whatever band CQ two

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or whatever band you like, and
cause some of them to speak up and

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explain why this is forbidden see lawyers
uget the worst. And then Katie seven

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TKJ replies, this guy has his
call sign on Reddit. What do you

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know? Don't call SEQ on a
full quieting FM link, But also don't

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walk into a room and just shout
your own name. If you want us

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to demo the network for your friends, say so, we might reply to

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that where a call signed by itself
comes off to me as a game.

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I don't agree with that. A
call signed by itself comes off to me

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as a game, huh? And
then the real marsupio. He replies again,

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that's interesting because a call sign by
itself doesn't come across as a game.

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Then forour more replies. Right here
at the bottom, I'm gonna open

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that up. Call sign by itself
says to me, you are there if

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I have traffic for you in a
message handling network sense, No, disagreed,

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I have no traffic for you,
So along with you, So along

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with you. We all continue listening, expecting me to dream up some traffic

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for you based solely on your call
sign and no writing prompt. Seems like

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a game. Yes, well maybe
to you, But in thirty years of

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being on repeaters, I've both done
it that way and responded to people that

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way. It sounds like you almost
just are looking for trouble, like you're

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just wanting something to complain about.
I don't know, real marsupio Again,

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I guess I don't see it that
way. Maybe because I'm an extrovert and

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I don't have time to make traffic
for people. I guess I just don't

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see it the same way. There's
a lot of history in those hills.

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The relay and American Radio Relay League
is a reference to the message handling history.

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You're talking about a message net,
Yeah, you're talking about radiograms.

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In the early days, we model
sales off of telegraph companies and set radiograms.

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Eight Royal still operates a national traffic
system well sorted, it operates itself,

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although most of the traffic these days
are artifically generated. Some club sending

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welcome radiograms new hands. Mostly here's
some reading national traffic system. You're relating

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throwing your call sign out on a
repeater to a national traffic system. I

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don't think I agree with that.
I mean, if that's how you want

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to look at it, okay,
I'm not saying you're wrong, But in

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thirty years of being our repeaters,
I've never looked at it that way.

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And if I hear someone throw their
call sign out on a repeater, I

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will go back to him. Especially
today, we're guess what the whole complaint

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is, Hey, there's not enough
activity on repeaters. Here's the good one

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here K five SNR. Thank you, Dave, Dave Alvarado K five SNR.

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This is perfect advice. I did
this in conjunction with the hand Radio

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two point zero challenge to throw your
call sign out on a local repeater every

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day for a week. I don't
remember saying every day for a week.

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I think I said for twenty twenty
four. But I said it more than

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one time, so maybe I did
say for it. Maybe I said,

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hey, just try it for a
week and see what happens. But what

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I meant was try it for a
week, see what happens, and if

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you get good results, keep going. On my morning and evening commune,

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I did a variation of good morning
evening everyone, This is call signed mobile

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on my way to work and monitory. I think in the course of five

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work days I had six or seven
QSOs on the local repeaters. Okay,

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so five work days six or seven
QSOs, you got at least one qso

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per day by doing that. Basically, if you want to talk to someone,

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make it obvious that you want to
talk to somebody, and you'll have

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QSOs even on dead repeaters. I've
already checked marked the thumbs up the h

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approving of that post. So new
challenge, guys, or a reiterance of

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the former challenge here it is key
up your repeater once a day, your

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local repeater once a day. If
you have more than one good local repeater,

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key them both up. Key one
up in the morning, key one

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up in the evening, key another
one up in the evening. If you

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have one repeater, if you're like
man, I don't want to go through

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all these repeaters, just do it
to one. Do it to one,

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do it to two or three or
four, Okay, And if you don't

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want to do it every day,
make a point to do it a couple

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three times a week. I don't
do it every day. I was doing

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it every day for a while,
and I did have some QSOs, and

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then I went out of town and
I came back and had some stuff going

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on. I've been I did a
lot of traveling. During the month of

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April, I did a lot of
traveling. Well, I was out of

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town for a little bit over a
week for hamvention during the month of May.

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Since I've been back in town,
I've had several repeater conversations. One

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of the best repeater conversations I had, in my opinion, was two days

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ago when we had some bad thunderstorm, really high winds. We didn't have

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a tornado touchdown near There was one
several miles away, but not in my

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town. We had some high winds, we had thunderstorms and about fourth and

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this all started about four to thirty
five o'clock in the morning. Well,

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by eight o'clock that same morning,
the power had gone out and it stayed

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off for three or four hours,
and it came back on for an hour,

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then it went off for another couple
hours, then it came back on.

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And it did that two or three
times. I used some of my

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battery stations to kick up my internet
and get online, turn the TV on,

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you know, important things. But
the whole time I had an HT

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sitting right there and on the Uless
repeater for forty two dot nine hundred.

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They were doing a welfare check.
They called. They did this during the

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Texas Snowmageddon several years ago. They've
done this the last two or three winters

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when we've had days of very low
temperatures, single digit temperatures in the metroplex,

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which is kind kind of unusual for
North Texas. But they'll do a

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welfare check. They'll get on there
and just say, hey, this is

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blah blah blah monitoring on the W
five eul U list repeater. Very informal

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00:15:13.320 --> 00:15:16.279
net we're just monitoring today. If
anyone needs anything, let us know.

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If you want to ragchew, that's
fine if you have questions. Weather reports,

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power outage reports, which I've reported
power outage several times that day,

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and it was just a good place
to talk and communicate and something to use

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while your power was out. Here's
the challenge. Key up your repeater,

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your local repeater every day for the
rest of twenty twenty four. And if

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you can't do every day once again, do it a couple times a week.

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But put a note on your calendar, put a notification on your phone

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or on your watch, and keep
up your local repeater and see what kind

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of activity we can draw from that. Seventy three