I wonder if some of the vhf / uhf bands that seem dead could be helped by adopting an operational change to help stir up interest, or bring those out of the listening-only woodwork?
I was reviewing some emergency procedures to save your handheld batteries, by having the group agree that if a search is needed, then the time to call and listen would be at the top of the hour to 5 minutes past. Then switch off and repeat hourly.
But this isn't about emergencies. Unless you live in your shack and monitor 24 hours a day, I was just wondering if that same thing could be initiated for those trying to stir up activity who don't actually live on their radio!
When monitoring with a receiver myself on national simplex frequencies, I have heard numerous instances of up to about 8 people just missing each other by minutes, and only later heard them say nobody was on. Maybe timing could improve things!
An example (although the freq may vary locally) is to just pop out your call at the top of the hour, and if nothing heard, then maybe just a few more times each minute until :05 after, and continue on with your life.
You could even do this with a local repeater that seems to go unused. I've heard many guys just barely miss each other by minutes, yet they say the repeater is dead because they immediately qsy'ed. Sad.
Does this seem like a reasonable idea? Instead of randomly calling on say 146.520 or a local repeater on a whim, do so at the top of the hour at the very least? Seems like agreeing to the top-of-the-hour call being the best (but not only) time to call would increase the odds for those that don't live radio 24/7.
I was reviewing some emergency procedures to save your handheld batteries, by having the group agree that if a search is needed, then the time to call and listen would be at the top of the hour to 5 minutes past. Then switch off and repeat hourly.
But this isn't about emergencies. Unless you live in your shack and monitor 24 hours a day, I was just wondering if that same thing could be initiated for those trying to stir up activity who don't actually live on their radio!
When monitoring with a receiver myself on national simplex frequencies, I have heard numerous instances of up to about 8 people just missing each other by minutes, and only later heard them say nobody was on. Maybe timing could improve things!
An example (although the freq may vary locally) is to just pop out your call at the top of the hour, and if nothing heard, then maybe just a few more times each minute until :05 after, and continue on with your life.
You could even do this with a local repeater that seems to go unused. I've heard many guys just barely miss each other by minutes, yet they say the repeater is dead because they immediately qsy'ed. Sad.
Does this seem like a reasonable idea? Instead of randomly calling on say 146.520 or a local repeater on a whim, do so at the top of the hour at the very least? Seems like agreeing to the top-of-the-hour call being the best (but not only) time to call would increase the odds for those that don't live radio 24/7.