"Alan" wrote ...
It seems that "monitoring" has fallen out of favor, at least with
folks I know. If you want to talk to someone, you might say something
like:

"Anyone around? callsign"

or even actually call CQ.

"Monitoring" tells me you are listening, but does not imply that you
are actively soliciting a contact, just that your radio is on.

"Monitoring..." seems to be the most prevalent method
that I am hearing on the popular repeaters here in the
PDX area.

KE7GKP