Lack of activity on 2m/70cm ?

[billpritjr]

I am in Dallas area (a very large metroplex) and hear very little activity anymore on 2m and 70cm. I have not listened to these bands in years (as in 1998, 2002) and just now decided to start listening.

very dead

anyone else ?

 

[toastycookies]

2m is booming up here. They've been rolling out a few DMR repeaters lately.

 

[n5ims]

I am in Dallas area (a very large metroplex) and hear very little activity anymore on 2m and 70cm. I have not listened to these bands in years (as in 1998, 2002) and just now decided to start listening.

very dead

anyone else ?

Funny. I'm also in the Dallas area and hear quite a bit of activity on both 2m and 70cm. 146.88 has quite a bit of activity with a large number of nets nearly every night of the week. 145.17, 145.33, 146.72, 146.92, 146.94, 147.14, and 147.18 are also quite popular on 2. There are several 70cm channels that are also quite active with many of them linked to provide wide are coverage and even provide national or international nets at times. I also pick up active packet radio channels, as well as APRS activity. I also find quite a bit of activity on simplex channels (mostly 146.52 and 146.55, but also on other standard simplex channels).

Obviously at times things can appear quite dead (even hams gotta sleep!!) but during the typical "drive times" when traffic is heavy, there's quite a bit of activity on several repeaters. When bad weather is making its way across the area it's hard to find a major repeater that doesn't have a SkyWarn net active.

A few things besides timing may be your problem. Do you have the repeaters programmed correctly (most use CTCSS Tones) and some require a tone when you transmit, but don't send out a tone on the repeater so you'll need to leave the receiver open. Do you have a good antenna (outside?) or just the rubber duck on your HT? While I do pick up lots on my HT, it's noisy and except for a few close by repeaters not much activity. On my base with a gain outside antenna there's lots of activity much of the time.

Need some help setting up your radio (or just want some ham to ham conversation)? Try the weekly "Ham and Eggs" at the Whataburger, at the corner of Highway 190 and Old Denton Drive in Carrollton every Saturday mornings starting around 7:30 AM (by 8:30 the place often is nearly full of hams). Metrocrest Amateur Radio Society. Things continue with the MARS "Play Day" on the Saturday following the second Thursday of each month (the Sat following the monthly MARS club meeting). This is generally at the Carrollton Josey Ranch Library on Keller Springs road, just west of Josey, but check with the web site to make. Often they can program your radio for you during the Play Day (especially if they know you need it done).

 

[billpritjr]

N5IMS: GREAT INFO

Tell me, what freqs should I have loaded for my drive Alliance Corridor to Denton, and also for Denton to Highland Village to FM to Grapevine, and reverse.

Those "zones" represent 98% of my life.

THANK YOU

 

[n5ims]

N5IMS: GREAT INFO

Tell me, what freqs should I have loaded for my drive Alliance Corridor to Denton, and also for Denton to Highland Village to FM to Grapevine, and reverse.

Those "zones" represent 98% of my life.

THANK YOU

This page (Metrocrest Amateur Radio Society) has links to the Chirp software (the gold standard for ham radio programming) and a .csv file used by the MARS club's ARES/RACES organization as their "standard load". The first few items are MARS specific and has their repeaters as well as a simplex backup used for ARES/RACES nets. The repeaters are duplicated further down the list as well. This is because the basic load is used by several ARES/RACES groups in the area where the basic list is identical but those first few lines are for easy access to that group's repeaters while the rest of the list are the same. This allows quick and easy access to that group's frequencies while allowing easy and correct programming for repeaters that may be used during large emergencies.

A more complete list (well, a couple of lists) can be found here Dallas / Fort Worth Repeaters and Ham Radio by N5LXI / joel Sampson Art - Dallas Texas

If you would rather roll your own, these are some good choices:
City, Freq, Offset, PL
Denton, 146.92, -, 110.9
FT. Worth, 146.94, -, 110.9
Arlington, 147.14, +, 110.9
Carrollton *, 145.21, -, 110.9
Lewisville, 145.17, -, 110.9
Plano, 147.18, +, 107.2
Dallas, 146.88, -, 110.9

Due to work being done on the normal site, 145.21 is using their back-up site with a reduced footprint. Once the regular site is again available (at this point it's past due, but what government project is ever on time - did I really say that???) it will return to the wide-area footprint.

Using the MARS and N5LXI lists you can make a pretty complete list when combined with mine above. Be aware that since most of those lists were created, several repeaters have upgraded to Yaesu Fusion repeaters, but most of those are in "Auto" mode where they will be in standard analog mode if it hears an analog signal but may be in digital mode if only digital users are transmitting. There are also some other digital repeaters in the area (like DStar, P-25, MotoTRBO, etc.) so you may hear some digital "noise". Some are like the Fusion ones and will revert to analog for analog signals or use digital when digital signals are in use. For most dual-mode repeaters, you can avoid the digital "noise" by programming in a receive CTCSS tone for the repeater. Digital modes don't use a tone so this will only open the squelch when in normal analog mode.

Just remember that some repeaters that may appear close have rather small coverage areas and others that may be far away (based on their reported location anyway) have great coverage. You may want to program in most on the lists and let the coverage work themselves out. If the coverage is small scanning will jump over them quickly and if they're noisy and you never appear in their range, just lock out that channel for scanning.

 

[TheSpaceMann]

Funny thing is that a lot of the time, hams are scanning the repeater frequencies but are reluctant to respond. If you say your call plus "listening", you might not get a response. For an experiment, I decided to go on repeaters and say either "CQ" or "Break", or "Anyone got a copy?", and a whole bunch of hams just seemed to come out of the woodwork!!

 

[robertmac]

Funny thing is that a lot of the time, hams are scanning the repeater frequencies but are reluctant to respond. If you say your call plus "listening", you might not get a response. For an experiment, I decided to go on repeaters and say either "CQ" or "Break", or "Anyone got a copy?", and a whole bunch of hams just seemed to come out of the woodwork!!

Especially "Break" which unlike CB often refers to an urgent call. Or a "break" during a message to let the repeater drop.

 

[TheSpaceMann]

Especially "Break" which unlike CB often refers to an urgent call. Or a "break" during a message to let the repeater drop.

Well I usually say "Breaker by, any good buddies out there got a copy on me on this repeater?" Boy, do I get an earful!! LOL!!!! They are usually nice about it though, after I explain to them what I was trying to do!!!

 

[N4GIX]

I just simply announce my call and state I'm looking for a contact. That works most of the time for me.

 

[BBB007]

There was quite a flurry of activity a few years ago when the cheap Chinese HTs hit the market. Then in typical stuffed shirt fashion, operators of said trancievers were verbally bashed for using them. No one wants to deal that malarky, so many have given up...to bad there is now very little repater use, so I guess the stuffed shirts won, but won what? Silence, just what the hobby doesnt need.

 

[N4GIX]

They should have done like I do. Tell folks it's Kenwood, Icom or Yaesu. It's not as though anyone can see the difference!

I actually do own a very nice XPR7550 Motorola, but when I use my MD-380 and tell folks it's my expensive Personal Radio 7550 they don't know the difference! :lol:

 

[Project25_MASTR]

I usually always hear to/from/lunch traffic out of the Ft Worth club's fusion repeater, the Denton arc wide area repeater there at the women's college. Sometimes I hear goings-on on other 2M repeaters as well. I haven't found anything that can match the coverage of the Denton wide area repeater yet. You can use that thing mobile to Midlothian and hill top as far as Waxahachie.

Sent from my SM-T350 using Tapatalk

 

[robertmac]

There was quite a flurry of activity a few years ago when the cheap Chinese HTs hit the market. Then in typical stuffed shirt fashion, operators of said trancievers were verbally bashed for using them. No one wants to deal that malarky, so many have given up...to bad there is now very little repater use, so I guess the stuffed shirts won, but won what? Silence, just what the hobby doesnt need.

Although this may not be a problem with just CCR, a lot of new comers use the HTs with the supplied antenna, or upgraded antenna, or mag mount. These do not work in all cases. I hear a number of people [well hear is not the correct word], transmitting but there signal is so darn poor that only about 10% of the words are audible. One cannot tell what they are trying to do: call someone, saying they are waiting for a call, etc.. At least some to try to make a call when a friend is monitoring. Just because one presses the PTT, doesn't mean someone hears what you are trying to do. Make sure you have an adequate set up to reach the repeaters that you want. But then, there are a number of stuffed shirt hams that feel repeaters should not be used. So they sit on 146.52 and yak all night. But that eliminates the 99% of HT users. I find the world in general, people are not willing to help. Yes, there are the 25% of people there that are willing, but most don't. I don't think it is largely stuffed shirts. We seem to agree to disagree today. If one wants to use repeaters, fine. Don't black ball them because they do.

 

[BBB007]

Ditching the stock rubber ducky antenna is the indeed the first thing owners of 2 meter HTs should do, and most understand that basic fact. Agreed, if you can't hit the repeater with out breaking up, you should bail out.

Most newer 2 meter/ 440 radios have some sort of auto-scanning feature that listens for repeater tone usage. You may be able to give that a try that if your transceiver supports it. Some have gone the DIGITAL way and all you hear is a data blast. Some Fusion equipped repeaters coming on line will revert back to analog if hailed with an analog transceiver.

What transceiver or scanner are you using?

 

[Project25_MASTR]

Ditching the stock rubber ducky antenna is the indeed the first thing owners of 2 meter HTs should do, and most understand that basic fact. Agreed, if you can't hit the repeater with out breaking up, you should bail out.

Most newer 2 meter/ 440 radios have some sort of auto-scanning feature that listens for repeater tone usage. You may be able to give that a try that if your transceiver supports it. Some have gone the DIGITAL way and all you hear is a data blast. Some Fusion equipped repeaters coming on line will revert back to analog if hailed with an analog transceiver.

What transceiver or scanner are you using?

Never replaced my antennas on my VHF HTs with non-OEM antennas. Mine do just fine.

Sent from my SM-T350 using Tapatalk

 

[K5MPH]

N5IMS: GREAT INFO

Tell me, what freqs should I have loaded for my drive Alliance Corridor to Denton, and also for Denton to Highland Village to FM to Grapevine, and reverse.

Those "zones" represent 98% of my life.

THANK YOU

Just make sure you have the 146.880 repeater in your radio that repeater gets out all over the Metroplex,i have used it all the way to the south Interstate 35 split just like N5IMS says thier is always a lot of stuff on that repeater,their is always a lot stuff going on in ft.worth and dallas metroplex with Ham radio.........

 

[Jimru]

We had a discussion here on a recent ARES net in Central Virginia about the apparent lack of activity on the local repeaters and my suggestion was (and is) to say something like the following when you key up: "This is (your call sign) listening; anyone out there?" Adding "anyone out there" can make the difference because sometimes there are people monitoring, but for whatever reason, if all I say is "W4PKR monitoring", people rarely come back to me! When I added "anyone out there" (or a similar phrase) I'll often get a response!


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[TheSpaceMann]

We had a discussion here on a recent ARES net in Central Virginia about the apparent lack of activity on the local repeaters and my suggestion was (and is) to say something like the following when you key up: "This is (your call sign) listening; anyone out there?" Adding "anyone out there" can make the difference because sometimes there are people monitoring, but for whatever reason, if all I say is "W4PKR monitoring", people rarely come back to me! When I added "anyone out there" (or a similar phrase) I'll often get a response!


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Good point! When I say "Anyone have a copy?" or "Calling any station, anywhere?", or even "Can I have a radio check?", I am much more likely to get a response. Of course, when I say "Break channel" or "Any good buddies out there on this repeater?", I almost always get a response, although it's usually not the kind of response you'd want to get!!

 

[Jimru]

Good point! When I say "Anyone have a copy?" or "Calling any station, anywhere?", or even "Can I have a radio check?", I am much more likely to get a response. Of course, when I say "Break channel" or "Any good buddies out there on this repeater?", I almost always get a response, although it's usually not the kind of response you'd want to get!!

Yes, CB lingo on a repeater will usually get a less than sunny response!

 

[TheSpaceMann]

Ditching the stock rubber ducky antenna is the indeed the first thing owners of 2 meter HTs should do, and most understand that basic fact. Agreed, if you can't hit the repeater with out breaking up, you should bail out.

Most newer 2 meter/ 440 radios have some sort of auto-scanning feature that listens for repeater tone usage. You may be able to give that a try that if your transceiver supports it. Some have gone the DIGITAL way and all you hear is a data blast. Some Fusion equipped repeaters coming on line will revert back to analog if hailed with an analog transceiver.

What transceiver or scanner are you using?

I'll never forget the day when, as a young ham, I built a 2 meter ground plane and hooked it up to my old Radio Shack HTX-202! I was hearing (and hitting) repeaters over 30+ miles in the distance!! It's amazing what a few watts can do when you have a good outdoor antenna up on the roof or in a tree.