Quote:
Originally Posted by W2IBC
...how is your grass growing hihi om...
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I know exactly what you mean. I've been a ham going on 35 years now and got my extra before the VE programs were established (read: he's really old, at least in ham years). I could never master "hamspeak" and would usually get out of a conversation as fast as possible if I got into it with someone who was doing the "Fine business, hi hi" thing. I hate the fake laugh that some people use (even off the air in real life), as it's disingenuous. I am also terrible at "roundtables" because my mind goes blank if I don't have a stake in the conversation. You can see I write a whole lot more openly than I talk and I do a lot of listening.
So, the rule on my repeaters has always been "plainspeak." Talk as though you were face to face or on the phone (minus the expletives and following the Rules, of course). If there was something wrong, talk more like public safety: short, terse transmissions, common terminology, get to the point fast, no beating around the bush, and NEVER any transmission more than 60 seconds. If it can't be said in 60 seconds or less, it doesn't need to be said on the radio. It works very nicely that way. And, it seems to keep the hamspeak people away, even though the repeaters have been/are "open." I've even had someone accuse me of not having a ham repeater, but putting a repeater on a ham frequency (except that it and everyone on it identifies with amateur radio callsigns - DUH!). The current repeater is a stock Motorola, has minimum hang-time so we can talk in simplex (imagine not spooling up the electric meter when you're talking to someone 3 blocks away), has no beeps or boops or talking IDers, and IDs in 20 WPM CW without CTCSS.
I guess that officially certifies me as "cranky," or overly... um... like Seinfeld's soup guy. No repeater for you! Come back one year!
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