[Boatanchors] The Silence of the Bands

[B Farrell]

Bob,

That's an interesting observation about repeaters.  Here in the greater
Washington, DC area there must be around 50 repeaters on the various VHF &
UHF bands but mostly 2 meters and from my perspective there is little
activity heard outside the few club weekly nets.  While the availability of
so many repeaters would seem to be a good thing for emergencies I suspect
that the pool of hams who are monitoring are so spread out among the many
repeaters that few transmissions or conversations occur outside net times.

I think there is a decline in retention of new hams who get their Tech
licenses perhaps because they lose interest.  The ARRL's answer is to
occasionally pursue license restructuring or band refarming. But the League
mucking about in the regulatory process has never solved the problem.

Brad K4RT

On Saturday, September 16, 2017, K5MYJ <macklinbob at gmail.com> wrote:

> I think the lack of HF CW activity has a lot to do with changing times.
>
> When I bought my house in 1960 I had NO antenna restictions. This was in
> South San Jose, Ca. When my daughter bought her house in 2001 (south of
> Seattle) she had a HOA that would not let me put up a HF antenna.
>
> So It is difficult for new people (if they have an interest in radio) to
> put up an antenna unless the have a lot of money and can live out in th e
> boonies or they buy and old house.
>
> So on days other than contest days I don't hear much here. But on contest
> days I do hear a lot. Where are all these contest people between contests?
>
> Her even the use of the local 2M FM repeaters is in decline. That's not
> the solar cycle. It's declining interest.
>
> Bob Macklin
> K5MYJ
> Seattle, Wa.
> "Real Radios Glow In The Dark"
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "B Farrell" <bradk4rt at gmail.com>
> To: <Boatanchors at mailman.qth.net>
> Sent: Saturday, September 16, 2017 6:27 PM
> Subject: [Boatanchors] The Silence of the Bands
>
>
> My primary mode has always been CW and I'm active on HF.  Sometimes there's
>> little or no CW activity on particular bands depending on the day and the
>> sunspots but I can switch bands and always find CW somewhere. There's
>> definitely less CW activity on 80 -- DX and casual ragchewing -- in the
>> evenings than in years past although things perk up during contests. I
>> would like to see more CW activity on 80.
>>
>> Your friend's "everybody" claim is a load of b.s. He might be like the
>> local we have here on a VHF repeater, routinely b-tching about how bad the
>> bands are and every time I hear him going on about that I'm hearing CW on
>> HF.
>>
>> I have tried some of the newer digital modes but they don't hold my
>> interest.  I have always been fascinated by CW probably because when I
>> first heard it as a kid listening to a shortwave receiver it really
>> grabbed
>> me.  It's never let go!  The same with 45 baud RTTY.  I will likely dabble
>> in the new modes from time to time, though.
>>
>> The one gentleman mentioned a bug. For rag-chewing I use a bug, iambic
>> paddle, or straight key; for DX the iambic paddle or bug; for contests
>> usually a keyboard nowadays simply because it's easy to also log contacts
>> on a PC. I know some gents who have arthritis who find it more comfortable
>> to use a keyboard for rag-chewing and so forth.
>>
>> Brad K4RT
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