On Apr 28, 12:56 am, "Ivor Jones" wrote:

Is it happening in the US and elsewhere as well,
or is it a purely British phenomenon..?

Here in the colonies our equivalent simplex calling QRG is 146.52. It
is largely vacant and in most cases a QSO initiated there stays there
as there's hardly ever a queue to use the channel.

As a related issue, K0CKB and I spend a lot of our free time traveling
in an RV. When we bought the coach I had a sign-maker cut me a vinyl
decal "K0HB & K0CKB 146.52". I have this decal on the rear of the
coach at eye-level to a following driver, and we religiously monitor
that channel. With over 16,000 miles on the odometer, the majority of
it on major highways, so far we've had precisely one station call us.

FM simplex isn't widely used here. In fact 2M itself is pretty vacant
--- even in a fairly large metropolitan area like St Paul/Minneapolis
you could shoot off a cannon on 2M and not hit anyone most of the
time.

73, de Hans, K0HB