Expo Portal Ham Radio Net, 05 Oct 2008 @ 19:00 MST

[Cabrito]

Sorry we missed you Lance. Just three of us on tonight. Me, Mark and Tim.

I was really looking forward to hearing first hand about the big continental divide trip.


Funny thing happened to me on the way out of the net. I was trying to disconnect the node but somebody was disconnecting me at the same time and identified himself as a Node controller for the node I was on. He admonished me for using their node for a net without permission. That was why I kept saying during our brief QSO that I would need disconnect soon because I know better. I was told to never use their node again for this net - I had asked last year to use it for the net and they told me that the repeater had so much traffic that I couldn't tie it up. They were pretty firm so I never did. But tonight I was at home and that is the only IRLP node I can get from here so I thought I would do a quick in and out check in. I should have quit while I was ahead and signed off quickly. I got the same speech as last time about all the traffic and that they had other scheduled activities on the repeater. The other funny thing was that there was virtually no activity the hour before and none at all for the past twenty minutes. When the Net was on Tuesdays I would listed to the node and there was never any activity during the 7pm hour then either. Oh well....
I will plan ahead better and use the repeater that is connected to the WIN system that I already have full permission to use. The WIN system, now there is a busy system indeed but the owner of that local node is super cool about me using his node for the Expo net.

I hope we can keep this one going.

-Michael

 

[Paul R]

I totally forgot about it but I was tied up with other things...
I liked weeknights and when it was more often better FWIW...

 

[1leglance]

Really sorry I had issues getting on a repeater...I drove 15 min to reach another repeater but I guess the rest of you were done waiting by then...bummer.

It did bring to light a few things in my mind..
I need to use my radio more...but that sucks since most of the time ham radio is old guys talking radios & antennas and that just doesn't interest me.
Another thing, I think more often might bring in more people along with posting this as a Overland Net on other forums so more folks might join in.
And lastly maybe having it just be open discussion so that no one has to worry about being net control or if like tonight net control can't make it then folks can still chat.
And lastly even if only 1 person is on put out a call every 5-10 min so that others outside our circle might hear and join in.

I would really like to see ham be in wider use by Overlanders but without something to talk about besides radios & antennas it is hard to get regular radio use.

Here in Phx a few of us have been looking for a repeater with a nice wide range that isn't in much use so we can reach out for folks other than old guys in ham shacks (nothing personal but my hobby isn't ham but overlanding).

All thoughts welcome.