So, instead, tonight I pulled the worst repeater I own from the confines of my North West facing UHF beam antenna at home and moved it back at it's original home; Malcolm Moos Medical Sciences building, 414 Delaware St. SE in Minneapolis. The coverage on the spare commercial gain antenna is similar to what it was when 443.000 N0YNT/R (118.8hz) was on that site some two years ago, and I enjoyed kerchunking it all the way out to I-394 and Louisiana Ave in the west metro of Minneapolis.
When I have more time, I'll put an RF or local link on 443.000 and link it to the Central MN folks via echo link. This will allow me and other Twin Cities amateurs to stay connected with the down-to-earth rural amateurs that I have cultivated a relationship with during my summer drives to and from my sister's farm in Hutchinson, Minnesota during the summertime. For now, the additional frequency and different PL tone will keep the super-busy 444.425 out of that linking system, and provide a quiet channel where 443.000 (with 118.8 hz pl Encode and Decode) can be linked to systems for short, mobile, chats to and from the Twin Cities and areas west of Minneapolis, Minnesota.
The personal politics of linking repeaters in Minnesota remind me of the first few years of owning and operating a repeater at my parent's home in New Brighton, Minnesota. I find that talking with other new repeater owners that they go through the same famine - feast - famine - feast - decision cycle that all new repeater owners go through.
The first year that I had placed a repeater on the air there is a feeling of pride -- the sense of accomplishment that I constructed such a machine. Carefully tuned duplexors, a power amplifier and exciter that are beginning to become frequency stable, getting use of your dual band mobile back (as it's no longer your repeater) are super exciting self-achievements. Then a month goes by with no use of the machine. Then another. Soon, I am begging the users of wider-area coverage machines to come over and "try out" my neighborhood repeater or "kerchunk my junk." You beg and plead for users, and they come one evening and 20 minutes at a time. Then I watch my creation sit idle for two years.
Finally, I discovered that you can RF link or -- better -- echo link -- my way into some activity for my little repeater. Hazaa! My creation is suddenly relevant again! But after the first hour-long link session, I start to notice that the amplifier is overheating and exciter is drifting off frequency... And nobody local even noticed but me.
This is the moment that a repeater owner has to decide; do I unlink and preserve the creation circa three years ago, or do I take on this new failing of my repeater system? Do I want to listen to activity that is not locally originating from my area, in the hopes that activity will spur further activity? Do I enjoy listening to these radio checks coming from Denver, Colorado? Are these my kind of people? Did we grow up in the same neighborhood?
Of course the choice is clear for most hobbyists; this is a hobby, and barring investing in better (full-duty cycle) equipment, it's time to turn off the linking and go back to enjoying the hobby of being a repeater owner of a community repeater. It's the easy way out.
After years of taking the easy way out, I decided it was time to "piss with the big dogs" and start cultivating machines that had the stuff that repeater users want: Coverage in the basement of your house. It's expensive. It's a commitment. There's lots of paperwork. And other people want to fight you about your users and linking.
The problem -- if you want to call it that -- on 444.425 right now is that the wide coverage attracts all sorts of hobbyists, including several users who like to yell into their microphones and others that play sound effects on the repeater at random times. I love this sort of gritty, city-life sound on a machine; I live in the city, where graffiti is called art; most amateurs don't see it that way. So, it's completely understandable that Dan KC0CAP and the central MN folks would rather 444.425 not get linked in regularly to the central Minnesota linking system, and only briefly "check in" via echo link for calls. And that's totally fine too.
What linking to 443.000 (118.8hz) -- or any other metro machine that I can get the "ok" from Dan to link -- will do for the central Minnesota linking project is allow for happenstance. Todd blogged about activity promoting more activity, and he's right on the money. If you make linking complicated, and only on-demand (See: Superlink) then out-of-towners who are traveling through Minnesota will never have a happenstance conversation with anyone, and get the impression that amateur radio in the upper midwest is dead. If you link a number of idle systems together you promote activity across multiple counties -- and you enable mobile users like truck drivers and delivery people -- to participate in an active hobby of interesting people to talk with.
The addition of a Twin Cities machine to the existing Central Minnesota UHF / VHF / 222 MHz systems means that travelers from Wisconsin along I-94 and points west now will have a single linking system that they can engage in a rag chew or short check-in with friends on. It brings Minnesota among a list of states like South Dakota, North Dakota and Wisconsin who have an interstate or statewide amateur FM linking system.
Besides, it gives introverted people like me something to listen to!
And promoting this hobby is the biggest way I can express love for it. Activity, and linking, seems like the best "social lubricant" that I can easily give back to amateur ops in the Twin Cities and Central Minnesota.
-matt
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