Sunday HandiHam net devolves into idiocy

Today I turned on my radio to catch part of the HandiHam net, which was a mistake.

I wasn't there at the beginning, but apparently nobody showed to take over the net. Whatever the net control situation was, it's a glaring example of why you need a Net Control Operator. Instead of the usual organised discussion and light-hearted well-wishing, the vast majority of the net was devoted to a discussion between a guy in Colorado who knew about IRLP and an incredibly obtuse wanker in Texas who simply wanted attention. It's possible that Terry was the Net Control, and he was just shockingly inept at the job.

I didn't write down the callsigns of the people involved. The guy in Colorado was named Terry, and the incredibly obtuse wanker in Texas used the name "Operator Robert". Between them, they completely monopolised everything. Terry even made a remark at the end, 'apologising' for disrupting our normal discussion "of things like recipes". Yeah, the net is normally all about recipes, isn't it? Really, what never was explained is why it was so terribly important that one person understand what IRLP was. This isn't life-or-death knowledge. Operator Robert didn't give any indication that he was even interested in the answers. Yet, it's absolutely crucial that this one guy in Texas absorbs a tiny bit of information, almost against his will. That's what a world-wide net is for, right?

Basically what happened is that "Operator Robert" wanted to know what IRLP was about. He posed some very vague, open-ended questions, and then proceeded to ignore every answer and talk about anything but IRLP. He reminded me of Ralphie on the Simpsons who, when asked something, will respond with, "My cat's name is Mittens". He craved any kind of attention, and Terry was the perfect sucker to keep being endlessly trolled. Presented with the history of IRLP, for example, Operator Robert responded with a description of just how smart and well-respected his mentor in Texas was. He didn't even make a pathetic attempt to respond, or offer any indication that he understood. Instead, he basically told the world the name of his cat.

It was as if Operator Robert responded to every fact given to him by offering a fact of his own - with no regard if that fact was relevant to anything being discussed.

It wasn't enough that "Operator Robert" (what's up with that, anyway?) didn't do the slightest research before asking his questions. It wasn't enough that he was provided with the URL of the page with all of the information about IRLP. His response to these answers was always to be confused. Hey, Operator Robert! You have to enter the URL into a computer and look at the web page. The web page is where the answers are, not the URL.

I think the height of idiocy in the entire 40-minute fiasco was when Terry told Operator Robert where the IRLP node in Dallas was, which is in the Republic Bank Building. I have absolutely no idea why Terry thought that giving this idiot the location of the node would clear anything up. Operator Robert, however,  managed to be completely baffled by even this simple bit of information. "I'm looking out my window, and I see a building with the letters KPNQ on it'. Really, Ralphie? Okay, so you're some place else, and you aren't finding that building at your current location. Yeah, that's pretty confusing there, buddy.  Maybe, if you wanted to look at the building where the IRLP node is hosted, you should go to that location. The building isn't coming to you, Ralphie. Terry, taking the bait with both hands, explains that KPNQ isn't a ham callsign. It never got better than that.

It was so stupid that it was hardly surprising that one guy wandered in to the middle of a goddamn net and threw out his callsign. When Terry asked him if he was responding to the discussion, this bozo replied that he was just letting everyone know that he was monitoring.

Toward the end, some of the net "regulars" made an appearance, but it was already in the books as a disaster.

This is one of the dangers of running the HandiHam net on IRLP. Suddenly, local people in places like Texas hear activity on their repeater. Nobody explains what's going on, or that the net isn't local. On top of that, incredibly obtuse wankers like Operator Robert, who the locals probably have learned to avoid, are now given a world-wide platform. We got a "recipe", all right, but it's for disaster.