In article t,
w4nti@get says...
SB QST @ ARL $ARLB013
ARLB013 FCC okays RF identification tags at 433.5 to 434.5 MHz

It's use it or loose it. I've turned on the rig several time during
commute and during the day when I get a chance. The 70cm band in RI/SE
MA is dead. Throw a call out, hear nothing back.

2M is pretty much the same. It's just too bad.

Tony P. wrote:

In article t,
w4nti@get says...


SB QST @ ARL $ARLB013
ARLB013 FCC okays RF identification tags at 433.5 to 434.5 MHz



It's use it or loose it. I've turned on the rig several time during
commute and during the day when I get a chance. The 70cm band in RI/SE
MA is dead. Throw a call out, hear nothing back.

2M is pretty much the same. It's just too bad.



IIRC, 434 MHz is in the middle of an ATV channel, not the repeater sub
band. Part of
me would be willing to concede (on a 2nd or 3rd basis) 434 for a horse
trade deal to
avoid BPL. But there is also the aspect of the camel's nose getting
inside the tent....
(I also realize that the RFID people are not the same as the BPL people).

There are airport radars at around 445MHz that look for wind shear. The
government
IIRC did go out of their way to avoid interference to the ham repeaters
in the area at each
such equipped airport.

In article ,
says...
Tony P. wrote:

In article t,
w4nti@get says...


SB QST @ ARL $ARLB013
ARLB013 FCC okays RF identification tags at 433.5 to 434.5 MHz



It's use it or loose it. I've turned on the rig several time during
commute and during the day when I get a chance. The 70cm band in RI/SE
MA is dead. Throw a call out, hear nothing back.

2M is pretty much the same. It's just too bad.



IIRC, 434 MHz is in the middle of an ATV channel, not the repeater sub
band. Part of
me would be willing to concede (on a 2nd or 3rd basis) 434 for a horse
trade deal to
avoid BPL. But there is also the aspect of the camel's nose getting
inside the tent....
(I also realize that the RFID people are not the same as the BPL people).

There are airport radars at around 445MHz that look for wind shear. The
government
IIRC did go out of their way to avoid interference to the ham repeaters
in the area at each
such equipped airport.

Oh - those are the Doppler radar units, particularly the one in Chatham
in my area, although I'm on the southwestern fringe of it.

And all they did was create quiet zones around many of them, for a
radius of 30mi. in some cases.

"Tony P." wrote in message
.. .
In article t,
w4nti@get says...
SB QST @ ARL $ARLB013
ARLB013 FCC okays RF identification tags at 433.5 to 434.5 MHz

It's use it or loose it. I've turned on the rig several time during
commute and during the day when I get a chance. The 70cm band in RI/SE
MA is dead. Throw a call out, hear nothing back.

2M is pretty much the same. It's just too bad.

Well the freqs being used for the RFID tags are not in the FM segement. But
I do agree with your point.

We have three strong and high repeaters in my immediate area. Hardly any
activity at all.

Dan/W4NTI

"Dan/W4NTI" w4nti@get rid of this mindspring.com wrote in message
nk.net...

Well the freqs being used for the RFID tags are not in the FM segement.
But
I do agree with your point.

We have three strong and high repeaters in my immediate area. Hardly any
activity at all.

Dan/W4NTI


Hello, Dan

It really depends upon your area whether you'll find a lot of use or very
little. Someone in North Dakota might not even have a repeater available,
yet if he fires up on 75 meters in the evening - wow! It's busy! Likely no
one is near him, he simply hears a ton of stations via F layer reflection.

Rochester, NY, is hardly Chicago or NYC, but I've filled my limited memories
on my HTX-404 (10 memory channels plus 3 priority channels) - every one of
them usable. I've chatted at 3:00 am with a trucker in Toronto via the
Toronto repeater (linked to the Rice Lake repeater in Canada which I can use
very well). I've chatted locally at 2:00 am with a professor from the
University of Rochester. Usually, there is some activity on 440 almost
every time of day (with the exception that it does get quiet between
midnight and 5:00 am LOL).

We have a *ton* of repeaters (I can use more than the 13, but that is the
limit of memory on the old Rat Shack HT) around here. One of the repeater
systems has ports on every band from 10 meters to 1.2 GHz (including 900
MHz). I've chatted with Australia and England via the 10 meter port (whilst
I was on one of the 440 ports). It really all depends ....


73 from Rochester, NY
Jim AA2QA


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"Jim Hampton" wrote in message
...

"Dan/W4NTI" w4nti@get rid of this mindspring.com wrote in message
nk.net...

Well the freqs being used for the RFID tags are not in the FM segement.
But
I do agree with your point.

We have three strong and high repeaters in my immediate area. Hardly
any
activity at all.

Dan/W4NTI


Hello, Dan

It really depends upon your area whether you'll find a lot of use or very
little. Someone in North Dakota might not even have a repeater available,
yet if he fires up on 75 meters in the evening - wow! It's busy! Likely
no
one is near him, he simply hears a ton of stations via F layer reflection.

Rochester, NY, is hardly Chicago or NYC, but I've filled my limited
memories
on my HTX-404 (10 memory channels plus 3 priority channels) - every one of
them usable. I've chatted at 3:00 am with a trucker in Toronto via the
Toronto repeater (linked to the Rice Lake repeater in Canada which I can
use
very well). I've chatted locally at 2:00 am with a professor from the
University of Rochester. Usually, there is some activity on 440 almost
every time of day (with the exception that it does get quiet between
midnight and 5:00 am LOL).

We have a *ton* of repeaters (I can use more than the 13, but that is the
limit of memory on the old Rat Shack HT) around here. One of the repeater
systems has ports on every band from 10 meters to 1.2 GHz (including 900
MHz). I've chatted with Australia and England via the 10 meter port
(whilst
I was on one of the 440 ports). It really all depends ....


73 from Rochester, NY
Jim AA2QA


---
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
Version: 6.0.659 / Virus Database: 423 - Release Date: 4/15/04


I am fully aware of that. There 'used to be' a LOT of 2 meter activity
around here. It all died away. There are 300 licensed hams in Calhoun
county. Maybe 30 are active.

Dan/W4NTI

"Dan/W4NTI" w4nti@get rid of this mindspring.com wrote in message hlink.net...
"Jim Hampton" wrote in message
...
We have a *ton* of repeaters (I can use more than the 13, but that is the
limit of memory on the old Rat Shack HT) around here. One of the repeater
systems has ports on every band from 10 meters to 1.2 GHz (including 900
MHz). I've chatted with Australia and England via the 10 meter port
(whilst
I was on one of the 440 ports). It really all depends ....


73 from Rochester, NY
Jim AA2QA


I am fully aware of that. There 'used to be' a LOT of 2 meter activity
around here. It all died away. There are 300 licensed hams in Calhoun
county. Maybe 30 are active.

That's ten percent, that's not bad at all. But it depends on the
regional population density which varies enormously across the
country. We have individual suburban townships which have as many as
200 ham residents here in the Delaware Valley region of the NE
corridor. This county alone has 43 municipalities, etc. We still have
the old 2M packet spots system up and running from Virginia well into
New England.

I have no idea what the actual numbers are but it's probably safe to
assume that most of the repeaters in this region have hundreds if not
thousands of potential users each. If even ten percent of 'em got on
the machines there would be complete chaos never mind what would
happen if the whole pack fired up and "got active". My point being
that activity levels in terms of perceptions of activity levels varies
all over the map. Literally. e.g., this patch ain't Calhoun County!

A couple trends I think I'm seeing here at least on 2M are movements
back to FM simplex ops and a noticeable growth in the use of SSB which
is being fueled by the availability of affordable multimode rigs like
the 706 and the 817. Might be that after 35 years or so of repeaters
dominating VHF/UHF ham comms they've run their course for a number of
reasons, the costs of acquisition, installation, maintenance and
operation being what they are.

Another piece of this discussion I think involves what I call the
"Nocode Bubble". We all know that in some huge number of instances
these folk have come into the hobby, jacked up the total head counts
by very large percentages and have left never to be heard from again.
But they're still taking up space on the FCC license servers and
skewing the real-world data by inordinate amounts. Pull the nocode
data out of the mix when talking about activity levels vs. raw head
counts and you get a whole different and much more realistic picture
of ham radio as it really exists in this country.


Dan/W4NTI

w3rv