Another simple example was a local group started their own club.
They had the amateur radio community with them and they took over all the local repeaters and linked them together.

They felt - why should every town have a repeater, when no one was using them?
They had a Boy Scout event at their club meeting and they encouraged everyone to participate.

One young gentleman -who was a Boy Scout and who wanted to participate, offered to come and help them.
His one mistake was that he said that he could bring his walkie talkie with him for other Boy Scouts to use.

The problem is - once you link all the repeaters together, and you can't hit any other repeater out of the local area, who are you going to talk to? It's like having a television that only receives one channel.
It wasn't like his walkie talkie was bad or anything, it was that it didn't talk anywhere and he really couldn't show the non hams anything about amateur radio - because the only radio equipment he had was his walkie talkie.

How much can you show a person?
You can't explain antenna's to them, because the only antenna you have is the rubber duckie antenna that is attached to the transceiver..

You can't work DX - because it's range is limited to what ever local repeater it can operate on.

ITS BASICALLY USELESS!

I felt bad when they turned him down and said that they did not need his help.
Technicially they snubbed him and that was the last time I ever heard him operate..
I wish that he lived closer to me - ( he was 48 miles away ), there was no way for me to incorporate him into my own club.
His age - (17) - was what really messes it all up.
Most 17 year old kids here do not have their own vehicle and their own job and their own money - where they can travel as they please...

This is one reason why I am so hard on new hams - to purchase good equipment up front and to use that equipment, and use it often..

My Yaesu 8900 is 1.75 years old and is already mostly wore out from use.
At least as far as the microphone and the exterior finish goes!