[Lowfer] Hello

[JD]

>I've been here for well over a year (maybe a couple years)
>but wasn't on any other lowfer list, so I don't know what happened
>on the other list or even that it existed. What is the other list and
>what happened to it?
>
>It always has been kind of quiet here but I hope there's more
>activity now.

I can guarantee you'll get your wish!

It's probably a little like watching a fleet of flying saucers land, and
while you're still marveling at that, you 're suddenly surprised to realize
the aliens aren't saying trite things like "take us to your leader" or "we
mean you no harm," but they're quite a chatty bunch who are already engaged
in a variety of ongoing conversations.  You're bound to wonder just where
they're from and why they're here.

Conversely, they might be wondering why you didn't already know of their
existence. <g>

In this case, the "other list" was operated by the Longwave Club of America,
which has been around quite a long time and has offered various services on
the Web for the past decade.  By the time we had capability to offer list
services, though, this one was already in existence and quite popular.
However, the "other" lowfer list was created about three years ago as an
emergency outreach, when a series of outages tended to plague this list for
days at a time.  It was a way to keep conversation going.

During the past three years, the most active FCC Part 15 beacon operators,
Canadian and European hams, and Part 5 Experimental Service licensees used
it to inform each other of their activities and discuss prospects for the
future.

We recently decided to discontinue it, and I recommended that the group
resume using this one.  At LWCA, we will still operate specialized lists,
though.  The one that is publicly available now is the HiFER group, for Part
15 communication activity above 510 kHz.

If you want to catch up on what's been going on in longwave radio, explore
the http://lwca.org site.  It's only a fraction of its usual size right now,
following a recent move to another host, but it will be expanded as we get a
chance to update and modernize some of the older pages.

John