Over the last couple of months, I’ve been noticing more activity on the 2 m repeaters around here. It’s been fun. The result is that I’ve been able to raise and chat with guys while I’m on foot around town.
Saturday, for example, on my walk downtown, I heard Thom, W8TAM call and started up a conversation with him. Soon after, Ralph, AA8RK, joined us. Ralph asked if I was headed down to the Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum to operate WA2HOM.
Honestly, I wasn’t, but when Ralph said he’d join me, I decided to go. Thom also came down and joined us. It was fun. We worked a couple of National Parks on the Air stations and we put a young museum visitor on the air. Her first QSO!
This kind of serendipitous QSO seems to be happening more often lately. With the addition of some new ham radio operators, we have reached some kind of critical mass. Guys get replies when they call and have interesting conversations. That prompts them and other operators to listen and get on more often, which encourages even more activity.
Another indication of the increased activity is the number of check-ins to our 2 m nets. For the last two Sundays, I’ve been the net control for the University of Michigan Amateur Radio Club net. Both times, we’ve had 13 check-ins. That may not seem like a lot, but it is a definite improvement. Not only that, it’s more fun when there are more check-ins.
2 m simplex
One of the 2 m QSOs that I had while walking downtown was partly simplex. Many hams rarely think about operating simplex anymore because the repeaters are often so quiet.
Well, on this trek, I threw out my call, and Ed, W8EMV, came back to me. He was at the home of Thom, W8TAM, and they were testing out a radio that Thom was going to loan to Ed.
Since they were less than a mile and a half away, I suggested that we try operating simplex. I rarely ever hear anyone operating simplex, and I was pedestrian mobile with my Baofeng UV-5R, so I really didn’t know what to expect.
After we switched over, Ed was full quieting. This was to be expected, of course. He was running 20 W, I think, into an antenna up about 30 ft. I was a little surprised to get the same report, as I was on my handheld, with a rubber duckie antenna. We were not very far away, though.
It was kind of fun to speculate how our signals were bouncing around to get to one another. We also discussed how we might set up a net should there be an emergency and the repeaters go down. We decided that someone needed to head up to the top floor of one of the downtown parking lots. From that location, they would probably have decent coverage.
Blog readers
In the past week, I’ve worked a couple of guys who mentioned that they read my blog. I love hearing from readers, especially on the air. If you ever hear me, please give me a call.
Edward Vielmetti says
Thanks Dan. I’m also fond of operating pedestrian mobile, and it’s nice to hear someone return a call!
The top-of-parking-structure operating mode is particularly nice, because you can use the metal railing or flashing at the top of the structure as a ground plane. I was able to hit the Chelsea WD8IEL repeater with 5 watts from the top of the Liberty Square structure, though to be fair I didn’t do a full QSO. I guess I might need to make a plan to do their weekly net one of these weeks…..