KØHB wrote:
"Michael Coslo" wrote in message
...

One of the biggest problems putting up a repeater these days is that many
areas are just full. There's no room at the Inn. And the area in which a
D-Star is likely to do best is in those crowded areas. .


Depends on the definition of "full" or the definition of "crowded".

I live in a metropolitan area in which there are no VHF pairs available for
assignment. By some definition that might mean that the spectrum is "full" or
"crowded".

But you could shoot off a cannon on 2M most of the time and it wouldn't hit a
soul. Nobody. Not a signal to be heard. Some days you can scan every channel
in sequence for hours on end with not a peep heard. Then go to each QRG in
sequence and transmit "K0HB LISTENING". Nobody home.


It is possible that I live in an anomalous area, but in Central PA, the
repeaters are pretty busy. And State College is the smallest
metropolitan area in the country. We have 5 repeaters, although one is
down for maintenance right now. Altoona to the southwest has a number of
repeaters that have traffic on them also.

naive mode on:

One of the most interesting aspects of Amateur radio is that we kind of
expect someone to be waiting there to talk to us. While we can't control
what happens in other areas, we can control our own.

If we want to generate traffic on the repeaters, the simplest way is to
generate some traffic on them. Get a friend and talk on the thing. Next
thing you know, others will join you. If enough places do that, there
will be plenty of traffic.

naive mode off:

That is what we did in our area. Traffic was down, and the obligatory
bemoaning of the problem was up.

We just had people get on the air and yak it up. Could be coincidence,
but more and more people joined the party, and a few years later the
repeater is in constant use.

This is one that Hams themselves have to bootstrap.


The NFCC needs to quit being the lapdog of the repeater owners, and do some
spectrum management housecleaning.

Interesting concept, but how to determine use or lack of use? (sounds
easy, but in practice it isn't.

- 73 de Mike N3LI -