So this is what happened....

You are right. I take that back. I will modify my statement to telling new hams to steer clear of repeaters unless they know the owner. I wasnt taking into account all the other things like meteor scatter, t-storm scatter, sats, weak sig, etc...my bad.

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Originally Posted by N7YA

You are right. I take that back. I will modify my statement to telling new hams to steer clear of repeaters unless they know the owner. I wasnt taking into account all the other things like meteor scatter, t-storm scatter, sats, weak sig, etc...my bad.

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Go to your room.

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Originally Posted by K7SGJ

I imagine that had those baggies contained something other than parts, and of an organic nature, the baggies would not be sitting on the shelf.

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Hehe, you know me too well :p

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Originally Posted by KJ6BSO

You folks are all committing the cardinal sin of extrapolating your local 2m scene to the entire country. Be aware that it's not the same everywhere. For instance, my local 2m repeaters are quiet most of the time but even when they are active, I seldom hear anyone talking politics. It's mostly just friendly, if banal, rag chewing.

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Well, you know, it's a funny thing.

I've seen a lot of the same kind of things being talked about happening here as well. Some of the old turkeys on the wide coverage .09 repeater, it's enough to drive anyone away.

But...

We'd seen a lot of drop-off on the club's .955 repeater. Until we found it a new home and moved it back to the South Hills a few weeks back. Users have been returning. And not just local ones; the other evening, I heard one gentleman in Beaver County (NW of the machine) having a long chat with two friends, both newer hams, one in Washington County (S) and one out in Westmoreland County (E & SE). A group from the club has started running a weekly Wednesday night digital net, primarily using FLDigi. A couple of former members who drifted away are active on the repeater again, and I know at least one has rejoined the club.

Will it last? Who knows? Point is though, it appears that good operators & good operating attract more good operators & good operating.

Now, we just need to perma-link 442.55 to 146.955, and then I can monitor the system from work!

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Originally Posted by kb2vxa

"I would encourage any new ham to forget 2m even exists."
There's more to 2M than repeaters, even more than FM simplex, a LOT more. When it comes to the world above 30MHz weak signal work is where it's at, people are civilized and DX can be anything from armchair copy to a challenge. Then there are challenging propagation modes, all in all there's more than will fit in a forum post.

"I bought them, got them weeks ago and just haven't felt the radio bug biting me as of late."
You can hook up a Vibroplex to a boat anchor with cathode keying or lacking a few hundred volts you can sit on it as it slowly gnaws at you. So why does it have to bite recently when one bite and you're infected for life? (Or at least I have been since the late 1950s.)

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That photo reminds me of an old episode of The Outer Limits. (Of course, they didn't use resistors to build their creatures' legs.)

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Originally Posted by KKM

I def need to build the two QRP HF rigs I have sitting in baggies on the shelf here in my studio. I bought them, got them weeks ago and just haven't felt the radio bug biting me as of late.

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I'll tell you what. I have a 40 meter Tuna Tin II sitting on the shelf collecting dust. All it should need is crystals (there's one with it) & a power source. I haven't done a damn thing with it (except move it on the shelf) since I got the Argonaut 505. Interested?

As I said, there are places where a Tech license would be all I would need much of the time, particularly since I do CW.

I did weak signal stuff on VHF and UHF back here for a long time, and it was OK - certainly more interesting than FM. On SSB, it's not hard to work the whole state of Minnesota, and all the neighboring states and Canadian provinces. From here in SE MN, you can work a radius of 2-300 miles with a yagi and 100 watts, very consistently.

6 meter SSB is always fun during Eskip season.

But most newbs don't start out that way. They get immediate sticker shock when they see the price of an SSB rig for VHF. The only real positive thing is the inclusion of 6 and sometimes 2 and 3/4 meters on some common HF gear these days. But no matter how much you try to convince them otherwise, they are usually tempted to buy something cheap "just to get my feet wet". Every time I hear that, I start to freak out. It almost always means they will be buying an HT, and in a few weeks, they will be gone.

I travel in the western states quite a bit, and the activity level is all over the place on VHF/UHF FM. I don't have trouble finding people to listen to/talk to along the Front Range of the Rockies. The linked repeaters in many of the western states are awesome, particularly when the repeaters are high level mountaintop machines. Yet, even with this massive connectivity, activity is very hit or miss. In the rest of the west, it's much more miss than hit, particularly if you are looking for more than a 5 second exchange for a contest or award.

It's time for another big snowbird trip. I need to get my VHF/UHF SSB mobile up and running so I can see how that is out west these days.

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Originally Posted by K7SGJ

Go to your room.

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But...im already in here. Should i go to the kitchen? Because i will happily do that.

"That photo reminds me of an old episode of The Outer Limits."

Uh yeah, The Zanti Misfits. Does this look like anyone you know?

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Originally Posted by K7SGJ

I imagine that had those baggies contained something other than parts, and of an organic nature, the baggies would not be sitting on the shelf.

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Gross. I dont think you're supposed to keep those. Those need to be disposed of in the cylinders with the picture of the dog on the side. They are all over the park, not hard to find.