Back in the late
90’s, I wrote a column in the SERA
Repeater Journal titled “Getting
Started.” It was for new hams, because I
really don’t know enough to impress old
hams. This is one… actually two, of
those columns.
Getting Started: The Friendly Repeater
By Gary Pearce KN4AQ, sometime in 1999…
I'll bet you've heard this one before.
"I just got back from a trip to West
Boondocks, and the hams there are so
unfriendly, I didn't make a single
contact on the local repeaters. Sure
makes me appreciate what we've got here.
This is 'The Friendly Repeater'".
I've got news for you. I've been to West
Boondocks, and they consider their
repeater to be "The Friendly
Repeater," too.
Not too long ago, my friend Jeff Wittich
AC4ZO and I made a road trip to Kansas.
Like Smokey and the Bandit, we had a
long way to go and a short time to get
there. Between meals stops at Krystals
and Steak 'N Shake, we did a lot of hard
driving. And we did a lot of hamming on
local VHF repeaters. One particularly
memorable contact occurred in the middle
of the night, in the middle of no place,
on some linked repeaters in western
Missouri. I think we talked for over an
hour as we barrelled down the road.
Almost everywhere though, in towns large
and small, we managed to scare up
repeater contacts.
How did we do it?
The standard method for announcing your
presence and seeking a contact on FM
repeaters seems to be to
mumble your callsign and append the word
"listening". That may be good enough to
elicit a reply from someone who knows
you on your local machine. But it
doesn't do the job when you're
out-of-town on a foreign machine. Ask
yourself, how often do people go out of
their way to reply to callsigns they
don't recognize when rapidly dropped
into your "Friendly Repeater"?
If you want a reply, you have to make a
bit of a production out of it. Jeff's
technique: after monitoring a bit to
make sure a repeater isn't already in
use, Jeff will key up and say something
like "This is AC4ZO mobile. I'm from
Raleigh, North Carolina, and I'm just
traveling through the area on Interstate
40. Anybody available for a contact?"
He'll say it in a calm, casual manner
that makes him sound like he'd be
somebody interesting to talk to for a
few minutes.
Now perhaps we've just stumbled upon the
crux of the problem. Making "First
Contact" with someone you don't already
know can be work, and it can be risky.
Answer somebody, and you may be trapped
in one of those pointless, inane
conversations where neither of you have
anything to say, and you're just looking
for a graceful way out. (The Technician
Class license exam has no questions
about how to make good, casual
conversation. I think there may be one
or two questions about that on the Extra
Class exam, but you can miss them and
still get your license if you know a lot
about satellites and Smith Charts and
stuff.)
If you're lucky, you can begin a
conversation with someone who has some
interests in common. You may get to
learn a little, or teach a little, or
both. Sometimes, it really clicks.
You're not suddenly "called to lunch,"
and you don't have to "concentrate on
your driving."
Maybe what we need to encourage more
people to take a chance on making that
contact is a universally
recognized exit strategy. Perhaps a
Q-code. How about QBC? That would be
interpreted as follows:
QBC? -Are we in the middle of a boring
conversation?
QBC -We are in the middle of a boring
conversation. Let's terminate
immediately.
On the HF bands, hams have created
solutions that allow them to making
dozens or hundreds of contacts without
fear of contracting "boring contact
syndrome." They're called contests.
Everybody knows exactly what to say, and
they say it quickly. Routine DX contacts
can also have the same rapid fire
exchange: callsign, name, location,
signal report, NEXT. Stateside HF
contacts, though, have more in common
with FM contacts. You are expected to
actually say something for awhile. And
I've been in a few HF contacts where QBC
would be a welcome transmission.
Speaking of HF, the guys down their have
a wonderful, traditional ham radio way
of letting people know they want to make
contact. They call CQ. Calling CQ was
discouraged in the early days of Amateur
VHF-FM. The rationale was that with FM
and crystal controlled receivers,
everybody who might be listening for
your CQ began hearing you as soon as you
opened your mouth. You didn't need a
lengthy CQ to attract the attention of
people who might be tuning across the
band. Instead, we were told to just
announce our callsigns and say we were
"listening." Too bad. If we had
just modified the traditional CQ to a
shortened version --CQ, CQ, KN4AQ
looking for a contact --we might have
made things a bit easier. But, we're
stuck with "blah blah blah-listening,"
and I expect it's going to be that way
for some time to come.
So you say yours is "The Friendly
Repeater." Prove it.
FRIENDLY REPEATER II: ROAD TRIP
Last year, I wrote a column called "The
Friendly Repeater", with tips for making
contacts on unfamiliar repeaters when
you're out of town. This month, we put
those techniques to the test, on a road
trip between Raleigh, NC, and Chicago,
IL. I took the trip to my old home town
in August to visit my brothers and eat
some Chicago style pizza and White
Castle hamburgers. Given the choice, I'd
rather drive than fly, and I had more
time than money, so I plunked an extra
magnet-mount antenna on the car (adding
a fourth antenna) and hit the road.
COLUMNIS INTERRUPTIS
But first, we interrupt this column for
an editorial. Sorry for shifting gears,
but this is something I think Getting
Stated readers, new hams and old, will
be interested in.
Recently I was tuning around on HF,
maybe on 75 meters, and I came upon a
couple of old-timers. One of them was
complaining to the other. What a
surprise -a ham complaining. When I talk
to the press or the public about ham
radio, sooner or later someone always
asks, "What do hams talk about." I'm
tempted to say, "Well, mostly they just
complain a lot…" I don't say it. Not the
right image. But we do our share of
complaining.
So this old timer was complaining about
one of these new, whipper-snapper 5 wpm
Amateur Extras, who plunked himself (or
maybe herself) right there in the low
end of the 20 Meter cw band and
proceeded to send this slow code.
Didn't she know that the low end of the
band is supposed to be reserved for
high-speed cw and the pursuit of rare
DX?
Something struck me as odd about that.
I'm not much of a cw man, but here on my
home repeater, there are a
handful of guys endlessly extolling the
virtues of cw (some with more tact than
others), and beating the drum for more
converts to that ancient and honorable
mode. And now I was listening to an
obvious cw man talking about someone who
was voluntarily operating cw, of his own
accord, without FCC intervention or
insistence. I would think our old-timer
would want to shake that man's (or
woman's) hand, pat them on the back,
maybe even hug them and buy them lunch!
Welcome, my friend, to the gentleman's
mode! You're gonna love it here! Now,
let's chat a minute about band plans and
operating agreements. You know, they're
not just for 2 Meters anymore… But no,
this old-timer was so blinded by anger
over this latest ruination of Amateur
Radio that he didn't even know a victory
when one tapped him on the key.
And now back to our regularly scheduled
column.
About a year ago, I began Getting
Started this way: I'll bet you've heard
this one before. "I just got back from a
trip to West Boondocks, and the hams
there are so unfriendly, I didn't make a
single contact on the local repeaters.
Sure makes me appreciate what we've got
here. This is 'The Friendly Repeater'".
I said that if you want to make contacts
on repeaters where you aren't well
known, you have to do more than
simply mumble your callsign once so
softly nobody could hear it even if they
were listening with more than half an
ear, which they aren't. You have to make
a production out of it.
It was time to take my own advice. So I
declared this road trip to be the "SERA
Repeater Journal Getting
Started Column International 'Friendly
Repeater II' Tour". It wasn't really
international, but I added that to sound
impressive. And I set out to see if I
could make some contacts. I equipped
myself with my usual mobile rig and
dual-band antenna, my 220 MHz mobile, an
extra antenna and a scanner receiver
programmed with all the 2 Meter
channels, a recent copy of the Repeater
Journal, a 2-year-old copy of the ARRL
Repeater Directory, and a GPS. On some
previous trips, I would spend a few
hours with the repeater directories and
maps, plotting a route and marking
repeaters I would pass. I didn’t have
time to do that this trip. I'd have to
wing it.
The Tour did not begin well. I did have
a chat with some locals as I left
Raleigh, but my first attempt to wring a
contact out of the 146.67 repeater in
Burlington, NC, was a dud. This is a
lightly used repeater in a small town,
it was mid-morning on a weekday, and I
was just beginning to refine my speech,
so I'll give them a pass. But when I
failed to pull anyone out of the weeds
on the big 146.76 machine in Greensboro,
I began to get worried. I switched to
the 145.15 machine, and Randy KR4QH
responded right away for the first
contact of the Tour. And he set the
right tone by saying that he never liked
to hear a traveling ham go unanswered.
Thanks, Randy! I was approaching
the fringe of the territory where I know
repeaters well. The scanner stopped on a
conversation on the wide-coverage 146.82
machine in Fancy Gap. I broke in and
passed along some information about I-40
traffic to a ham who was coming my way.
When you're in West Boondocks, and the
natives aren't seeming too friendly,
it's OK to ambush one and call them when
they've finished a contact, or find
another reason to wiggle your way into a
conversation.
And now I was polishing my routine, too.
I would appear on a new repeater, and
announce "This is KN4AQ
mobile, heading from Raleigh, North
Carolina to Chicago, Illinois, passing
through Winston-Salem and listening on
146.64. Anybody around to keep me
company?" Like I said, you have to make
a production out of it. Kn4aqlistening
is not as likely to catch the attention
of the locals. However, even this
elaborate pitch failed on the 64
repeater. The Forsyth County club
didn't let me down entirely, though. I
tried again on their 145.47 machine on
Sauratown Moutain, and got into a long
chat with Fred NA4P, who was also
driving cross-country. It was now about
4 pm, and your columnist had a new
problem: I was beginning to get horse
from all the talking. This was working a
little too well.
Fortunately, my voice recovered a bit,
and by 6 pm I was driving by Beckley,
West Virginia, and I found James
KC8GGF on the 146.85 repeater. I was
pulling these repeaters out of the
Journal, and wishing that I'd taken the
time to make some notes in advance.
Studying the Journal and a map while
driving solo isn't easy or safe. On this
trip, the problem was reduced because I
kept finding so many loooong contacts
that I didn't have to look up very many
repeaters.
James and his wife Doris KD8DOR kept me
on the air for well over an hour, and he
moved me to the 145.23
repeater to extend coverage. That's the
machine owned by Alex N8FWL, SERA's Vice
Director for West Virginia.
Thanks, Alex… nice repeater! Where were
you? James drives what he called a "rock
truck" -I think that means he hauls rock
around the countryside -and he's always
looking for a ragchew to pass the time.
James admitted that he is not currently
a SERA Associate Member, but he'll look
for the Journal at the next hamfest. If
you know James, tell him he's now
famous!
I wrapped up this long day at a motel
west of Charleston. As I was heading to
dinner, I monitored a very
energetic Trader's Net on 146.64 that
used a link system to bring a lot of
hams together. Thursday, back on
the road, and another immediate reply
from Steve W8AFX on the Huntington
146.76 repeater. Steve is retired,
and operates all bands 160 through 2
Meters while mobile. Steve pointed
me to a couple of repeaters that I would
be passing, saving me the trouble of
looking them up. On 146.94 in Ashland,
WV, I met Harriet WA4AXN. She's was a
Tech from the 60's, and said she was
"grandfathered" into a General with
restructuring last spring. I decided she
must have been "grandmothered" into the
general, and she agreed. We had so much
fun that I timed out the repeater, and
somebody jumped in and said "I'm glad
he's not a local -he's pretty windy!"
That is unusual for me. While I have
qualified for the ARRL's Rag Chewer's
Certificate
more than a few times (that requires a
30 minute contact), I'm not usually much
of a talker. You couldn't prove that by
the hams I met along this trip.
I was now aimed at Lexington, KY. Some
research on the Internet revealed that
there is a Krystal Hamburger
place in Lexington. Going through
Lexington was not the shortest or
fastest route between Raleigh and
Chicago, according to my Street Atlas
map program. And when I described my
plans to some locals as I left Raleigh,
they made fun of me for going out of my
way for a hamburger. But Cliff KD4VYA,
who replied to me quickly on the
Lexington 146.76 repeater, understood
completely. We don't have a Krystal's in
Raleigh, and the little, square "onion
sliders" are worth going out of your way
for! Cliff said that Lexington is
blessed with both Krystal's and
burger-clone White Castle. I regret not
taking time for a comparison test.
During most of my trip, I kept one
receiver going on 146.52 simplex -the
National Simplex Channel. Lexington
was the first place I heard anyone using
it. 52 is the subject of complaints and
debates. A recent letter in QST
carried the complaint that the writer
made a long road trip and never heard
any activity on 52. He thought more
people should monitor it, or we should
stop calling it the National Simplex
Channel. Here in Lexington, the local
hams were debating whether hams should
ragchew on 52, or just monitor it and
move to another channel to talk.
Actually, it wasn't much of a debate…
all agreed that they should ragchew on
52 to "keep it active" in case hams
traveling through needed a contact.
I didn't break in because I was just
arriving at the Krystal's for lunch. But
when I finished (4 double-cheese, fries
and a Coke), I decided to call their
bluff. I announced myself, and sure
enough, Ted WB4ERL responded. We talked
until I drove out of range. I listen to
146.52 from my home much of the time,
and there's sporadic activity in the
Raleigh area, but I'd hardly call it
busy. A local group uses 146.505, and
when they're talking I hear unpleasant
spatter on 52 (see last issue's column,
Elbow Room, for an explanation). The
Raleigh club uses 147.42 as the
"official club simplex" channel, but we
won't find many traveling hams there.
The next town down the pike, Louisville,
KY, brought another first for the Tour…
my first UHF contact. I had one
side of my mobile rig scanning the UHF
band, and it stopped on the 444.50
machine, which is a wide coverage
machine on a TV tower, actually just
across the Ohio River in Indiana. Once
again, I talked for well over an hour
with several hams, beginning with George
WB4ZZD. I messed up my tape recorder and
didn't log the other names and callsigns!
But about four of us talked about
everything.
UHF is not popular with travelers. Even
though there are almost as many UHF
repeaters as VHF repeaters,
activity is much lighter. It is rare to
hear someone from out of town pop up on
a local UHF machine, and when I'm
traveling, I surprise locals when I find
them on UHF. By comparison, 2 Meters is
a beehive of activity. On this trip, and
most others I've taken, I usually scan
all the 2 Meter channels while driving
along. Did you know that there are about
100 FM "channels" on 2 meters. The SERA
band plan shows 73 repeater output
frequencies, and 27 simplex frequencies.
Most of the time, my scanner stops on at
least one busy repeater within my range,
no matter how far out in the boonies I
am.
During that UHF contact, I finally left
SERA territory and headed toward
Indianapolis, Indiana. There, I decided
to forego the easy 2 Meter
fish-in-a-barrel contacts and try my
luck on 220 MHz. It was two strikes and
I was out. I got strong repeaters on
224.92 and 224.98, but no amount of
pleading could elicit a contact. I'm
guessing that nobody was listening.
Usually, if there's anyone there at all,
220 operators jump on a traveler,
because they are so rare.
Most of the repeaters I used during the
Tour were in metro areas, so as I headed
west from Indianapolis, I
decided to try a small-town machine. Two
of them, actually, in Crawfordsville,
Indiana. 146.685, and 147.225 were both
on the air, but there were no humans
inhabiting them except me. However, the
Danville, Illinois 146.82 was lively.
There, Terry KB9REE invited me to a
hamfest and their pre-fest steak dinner.
Sadly, I wouldn't be able to stay.
Next, I reached my first destination,
Champaign, Illinois, where my brother
Jay is the program director of WILL
(580 on your AM dial), the NPR station
at the University of Illinois. I turned
my attention away from ham radio to
listen to his cut-ins during All Things
Considered.
And finally, Chicago. A huge metropolis,
a place I called home for many years. In
the 70's, I was President of the Chicago
FM Club, and frequency coordinator for 2
Meters for Northern Illinois. CFMC was a
huge club -400 members -on the leading
edge of the 2 Meter boom. Their
wide-coverage repeater on 146.76 seemed
constantly busy, and was host to nearly
every ham who traveled through the city
with an FM rig. But on this Saturday
morning, I couldn't raise anyone who
knew the autopatch code to call my
brother and tell him I was late -stuck
in a weekend traffic jam that is now
typical of this big city. Finally,
someone answered who couldn't help me
with the autopatch, but did make a phone
call and relay a message.
This was now family time. My brother
Andy used to be WA9SBF, but lost
interest in ham radio in the 70s and
finally let his license lapse. He is an
engineer for several CBS radio stations,
and I got a tour of some of them,
including some time at the top of the
John Hancock building, over 1000 feet
above the downtown streets. While
driving, I did scan 2 Meters, and I
heard surprisingly little activity.
There is a repeater on almost every
channel somewhere in the metro area, but
few people were using them. With company
in the car, I didn't try to scare up
contacts.
While in Chicago, I dined at Lou
Malnati's for pan pizza, one of the few
things I really miss and can't get
anywhere else (Pizzeria Uno/Due, and
Gino's, have equally good pizza. Uno's
has branched out around the country as a
chain, but somehow what they make
outside the city doesn't compare). And I
hit White Castle. It wasn't a
side-by-side comparison, but I decided
that Krystal was just a little better.
Maybe.
The weekend went by quickly, and it was
time to head home. I looked at the
antennas, the dual band mobile, 220 rig
and scanner, and the map. I decided to
meander my way home, taking an extra
day, and skip the interstates.
And I was talked out. The Friendly
Repeater II Tour was a success. I had
proven beyond a doubt that you can
make contacts almost anywhere, any time
of day, if you just work at it a little.
But now I didn't feel like talking. I
cranked up the broadcast radio, found
some mellow jazz, some back roads that
took forever, and headed home.
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