[HCRA] Joining In ---- The Round Table

[Peter]

Hi Jim Harrington(and others),

Experienced communicators just hit the delete button on this email.  New 
license holders may want to read on.

I meant to comment on the last email (to Jim) about joining in to 
repeater conversations and what the general feeling is.  I am sending 
this information to the list so that other new hams from the class may 
benefit from the information.

This has been my experience with local repeater groups:  Many times on 
my way to work (or home from work) I will throw my call sign in just to 
see who may be listening.  Just as we do in our personal relationships, 
there will be certain hams who always chum around together.  If one of 
those folks are listening, I might get a reply to my ID on the air.  I 
only ID once so that I don't make a nuisance out of myself by doing it 
constantly.  If nobody comes back to me after I ID, I just leave the 
volume up and listen for others to do the same.  Many times I hear 
somebody ID that I typically talk to and strike up a conversation. 
 Sometimes I just strike up a conversation with somebody I haven't 
talked to before.  It is the luck of the draw and coincidence of 
commuting times.  

Once you "hang around" for a while on a particular frequency you get to 
know many of the others who also frequent that frequency.  You will find 
that the various repeaters have a certain "flavor" of people that 
congregate at various times during the day.  The "flavor" may change 
depending on the time of day as well as the frequency that you are tuned 
in to.  For instance, there seems to be a lot of technically minded 
people who hang around on 147.000MHz.  If I am interested in talking to 
some of these folks I might ID on that frequency.  There are no hard and 
fast rules though, it is just whatever trend you may happen to notice. 
 If you listen a lot, and/or join in, you will eventually become 
comfortable with the group that hangs out there (where ever "there" is).

Now that I have explain some of the "social" aspect of the repeaters, 
let's consider another aspect of communications on the repeaters called 
the "round table" discussion.  Many times during a commute (or other 
times), you may hear a conversation that you would like to become 
involved in.  The way to get into the conversation in a "round table" 
method would be to put your call sign in when the conversation changes 
form one person to another.  Sometimes you have to be quick with your 
call sign because as one person lets go of their microphone button, the 
next may be pushing their microphone button as soon as the courtesy tone 
sounds leaving almost no "space" for someone else to join in.  Once your 
call sign has made it in to the group, usually the next person in the 
round table will acknowledge that your call was heard and then turn it 
over to you after their "turn".  Normally they will remind you that 
after your "turn" you should turn it over to whoever is next in line. 
 In order to keep the round table going with all people participating, 
it is important to try to keep the order around the table the same or it 
can get confusing.  Round table discussions are difficult to "get the 
hang of" but once you do, it can be a lot of fun.  Think of it this way: 
 There is a table around which five people can sit.  Two people are 
already there and the rule is that you always talk around the table in 
one direction once the third person joins in.  If a fourth person comes 
in, then wherever that person happens to sit at the table, the 
conversation always continues to travel in one direction around the 
table.  That is why it is called a "round table" discussion.  The hard 
part is when you want to ask one of the participants in the round table 
a question who just passed it over to you.  You ask the question and you 
have to wait until that person sequences in before you get an answer. 
 By the time that person gets a turn, they may have forgotten that there 
was a question posed.  That is part of the fun of the round table, that 
is, trying to hold it all together as the conversation switches from 
person to person.  It takes a while to get the hang of it.  Finally, 
when leaving the round table, you should inform the person before you 
(in the order) who you have been turning it over to so that person can 
"close the gap" the next time it comes around to them (and you are no 
longer there to take your turn).

I hope this has helped some of the new hams.

73 de KI1I,
Peter