In article ,
Steve Bonine wrote:
I am assuming that a repeater with ZERO activity is a repeater with no
one who cares about it.

Your assumption is just that, an assumption.

Similarly, you assume that because a repeater is silent that "the
maintenance is hit-and-miss and there's no one who really cares
whether they are up or not". Again, my experience does not bear this
out.

Ditto.

The key word in your sentence is "used". "Zero activity" is
incompatible with "used".

Unless you monitor a frequency 24/7/365, it is impossible to claim
"zero use". When most people say "zero use", they mean "I never hear
anything on it". There is a BIG difference.

I did not imply that if a repeater is
silent that the maintenance is hit-and-miss.

"I am assuming that a repeater with ZERO activity is a repeater with
no one who cares about it." Define the difference between "silent" and
"zero activity".

What I said is that if
there is not a group of people who care about the repeater, it's likely
to be useless in a disaster, and I stand by that statement.

(Mark Kramer) wrote:

[...]
Unless you monitor a frequency 24/7/365, it is impossible to claim
"zero use". When most people say "zero use", they mean "I never hear
anything on it". There is a BIG difference.
[...]


It would be far easier to connect a voice-activated tape recorder
(like a Sony TCM-37V recording walkman) to a scanner that was set to
scan just the frequencies that are suspected of being dead. Then, you
could document your results when claiming that the frequencies should be
reassigned.

--
Klystron

On Mon, 9 Jun 2008 18:51:04 EDT, Klystron wrote:

It would be far easier to connect a voice-activated tape recorder
(like a Sony TCM-37V recording walkman) to a scanner that was set to
scan just the frequencies that are suspected of being dead. Then, you
could document your results when claiming that the frequencies should be
reassigned.

I spent a good chunk of my career gathering info on use (and non-use)
of radio channels as evidence. It is easy to show something is used -
play the tape / show the printout. Showing that a channel is not used
is quite a bit more difficult - is the blank tape real or a sham?

We're going through that right now in a commercial channel reclamation
proceeding before the FCC where it's our word against theirs.
--

73 de K2ASP - Phil Kane

From a Clearing in the Silicon Forest
Beaverton (Washington County) Oregon

e-mail: k2asp [at] arrl [dot] net