Randy, K7AGE, Tweeted this the other day:
It seems to me that this would be a good way to increase repeater traffic. I wonder what kind of hoops I’d have to jump through to get something like this added to Ann Arbor’s city limits sign. Anyone else doing this?
We have a law in Arkansas that provides for similar signs. I have never seen one, though, likely because clubs are required to pay the cost to produce the signs. Info: http://www.arkleg.state.ar.us/assembly/1995/R/Acts/1100.pdf
I love the idea, though. Would be a great project for a club.
I for one would love that. I’m headed to Utica MI for the holidays from the west side and had I been ill prepared and not pre-programmed my HT I would welcome these signs.
You need to consult the W8SRC Repeater Guide here on my website!
Great idea with only one minor flaw. Last thing we want to do is encourage one of our own to attempt to program his radio while navigating I-94 through Kalamazoo/Portage. Almost as bad as texting! However, just seeing the sign might encourage hams passing through to look up our repeaters when sitting still somewhere.
GRARA thought about doing that on our Adopt-A-Highway sign. But the arguments concerning the sign are something I don’t want to recall.
These signs are a great idea, but they work only if the person who sees them gets something other than dead silence or the cold shoulder when they announce themselves on the repeater.
Good point. I just turned on the HT on my desk here. If someone calls on the W8UM repeater during lunch, I’ll talk to him.
I make a habit of adding “visitor” after my call sign when polling an out of town repeater. I usually get results. First words off your tongue should be “great sounding repeater sir”. This usually encourages the responding party to join in conversation especially if they think you’re looking for local information. Toledo and Cleveland, OH are very rich repeater environments.
Too bad there aren’t a lot of “gentleman” truckers who happened to be hams passing through the area. They are rare indeed!
That’s a GREAT idea! However, as I understand it, we’re not supposed to use the term “PL Tone” any longer, since that’s copyrighted by Motorola, and we should simply use “Tone” instead.
KNØJI
I think you can feel free to use that term. I rather doubt that Motorola is going to sue anyone for using it.
I had a new Ham call me a few months ago asking what was a PL. He couldn’t find anything in the instruction manual for his new HT about it. Where we need to watch the use of “PL Tone” is our club web pages, where new hams may go looking for answers.
Good point, and one that’s true of a lot of ham jargon. At one point, I started a wiki that aimed to be an amateur radio glossary. Maybe I should start that up again. There are a lot of terms in amateur radio, as there are in practically every other hobby whose meanings are either not obvious or are ambiguous.
I wouldn’t lose sleep over it. Kimberly Clark probably doesn’t freak out every time we call any old facial tissue a Kleenex!
I cannot understand the need to tell hams that a 147 MHz repeater would need a positive offset, I guess the new generation, just never were exposed to the layout of this 4 MHz band. ? I’m just sayin’.
Is there any documentation on this anywhere? I’ve never personally seen any.