One can only wonder how many listened in,and how much gnashing of teeth was caused by the words spoken on that machine last night.
It started as Matt brought up my blog post about the 147.030 repeater. He told me that the machine had a lousy receiver, and wasn't very useful. I replied that the core of that post was really about the lack of a cohesive vision for the development of the local infrastructure. I was kind of shocked to find that Matt and John agreed with my premise, and even more surprised to have Don drop in and confirm my suspicions to be correct. A lot of people dismiss my insights into the local scene because I am a "stupid newbie" that doesn't have a clue about "how things work". It becomes harder to do that with a straight face when these three agree with me.
KA0KMJ (John) runs the Gopher Radio Club's UHF 444.425 repeater, as well as taking responsibility for some of the other repeaters at the U of M site. The UHF .425 is the most popular repeater on the band, with TCFMC's 444.100 being the competition. He has had decades of first-hand experience with the petty politics and internal squabbles of the local ham radio community.
N0YNT (Matt) also works on the .425, but helps maintain machines and towers all over town and even into Wisconsin. He has surprising insight and vision as to what the local infrastructure needs and how to get there, yet that insight is continually ignored by the "elders" who "know better". I think he realises that these "wise elders" have no plan beyond putting up as many machines as possible and having him keep them running.
N0BVE (Don) is the mind behind the HandiHam network, which does everything "wrong" in the eyes of those "wise elders". Linked repeaters, EchoLink conferences, cross-band links, simplex links, IRLP, world-wide nets, and the like are all "gimmicks" dismissed by an arrogant elite living in the amateur radio model of thirty years ago. Don had the insight to grasp that the future was in bringing people together, not isolating them into unsustainable, tiny cliques. He also had the means to make that happen, and the ability to inspire others to join in to something different and hopeful.
The old model of thirty years ago is irrelevant, unsound, and unsustainable. It was based on a much, much larger local population of operators, a scarcity of machines, local "weak signal" and FM simplex popularity, and a strong focus on clubs.
The reality is that activity is way down from those years, and that a whole lot of those licensees are inactive or dead. There aren't crowds trying to get on the local machines, and there aren't twelve-hour solid "key-up" times. Instead, you have a much smaller number of hams spread out on a relatively larger number of repeaters. You do the math. Okay, then I'll spell it out for you: low activity and small, unsustainable cliques.
Are there still people doing "weak signal" VHF work in the metro? Sure. Whatever. There may be people churning their own butter, too, or speaking Esperanto. What's your point? There's nothing "wrong" with two-metre sideband or FM simplex, okay? It's just not the future of the hobby.
And, as for clubs: clubs are dying. Many of the "clubs" operating repeaters in town are three, or maybe four guys. That wasn't the vision of thirty years ago. Now, it's all about individual egos and power trips of a tiny few. It's not about large, thriving organisations with a common vision and a common ownership of the infrastructure.
Basically, there's a small number of 'elite' hams who run everything and 'nobly' allow the rest of us to use their toys.
The Twin City FM Club membership had a fit of "elder rage" and decided to stop hosting their profitable HamFest -- because "ham radio has changed". Now they're broke, and the world has still changed. They are perpetually begging for money to keep their machines going, and hounding members to pay their dues. Their VHF .76 is largely unused, except for their weekly "Swap Shop" -- which is more like a regular net. Their UHF .125 is so dead there should be cobwebs on the antenna. The UHF .100 is now the "retirement home" repeater for the latest news from Memory Lane or retiree breakfasts, and that activity is sporadic.
Hey, there's nothing "wrong" with that. If any younger person wants to hang out with, and pretend to be, a retired guy whose cultural references end in 1985, then they will be welcomed. As long as they pay dues, though. Full disclosure: I am a dues-paying, fund-donating member of TFMC. I won't renew, and I won't continue to donate.
The Twin Cities Repeater Club is one that I don't know much about. I send them money every month, though I'm not a member, just to help support their machines. Hardly anyone is actually on those machines, however, and they don't reach into Plymouth very well either. They are a real club with real meetings, and they are more than four guys writing cheques every month.
A lot of repeaters out there are run by "shell" clubs. Who is the "SPEARS" that runs the 442.600 in Maplewood? No website, email addresses are undeliverable, nothing on QRZ.. I'm betting it's two or three guys that write cheques, and they aren't interested in "new members" because new members might have new ideas. Who is the "MidwestRA" that runs the VHF .370? How does anyone join if your organisation is secret? MARA, the "club" that runs the VHF .850, at least has a website. Who runs it? No idea, but you can send them money if you want. Keep your ideas to yourself, though. Who is the "Richfield Amateur Radio Club" that operates the empty VHF .390? No website listed; Google shows nothing.
This isn't to say that there's anything 'shady" or nefarious going on with these 'clubs'. It's just that they aren't responsive to the average ham. There are, certainly, people that know who is behind every one of these 'clubs'. The idea, however, is that if you aren't one of those people on the "inside", then you don't really need to concern yourself about who is running the machine that you use. Also, the questions I posed in the preceding paragraph were rhetorical. Don't send me lists of names. I don't care. My point is that the information isn't public.
Groups like the St.Paul Radio Club are the exception. They have an actual website, with officers that have real names, and public meetings. They have only one repeater, though, and it doesn't have strong coverage. Still, they are one of the few real "clubs" pursuing the vision set forth thirty years ago.
That vision was that these clubs would drive development, and would be responsive to the average ham because they were supported by the average ham. That was inconvenient and messy, however. There were wise, elite hams that 'knew' what was needed, and they could 'get things done' more efficiently if they were simply left alone to work in the shadows.
And so we are left with a fragmented operator community, divided by tenuous "allegiances" into small cliques that never meet, existing on machines that they have no control over, and that could be pulled out from under them at any time. This is what we are supposed to just shut up and accept.
That old model hasn't panned out like our Elders thought it would. The idea that everyone would find their own little niche repeater, and live happily ever after with their own kind, is a vision more appropriate for the 1950s.
In the 21st Century, we have the internet. We have technologies beyond DTMF key pads. The idea is to bring as many isolated hams together as want to be included. Those that want to hide in their backwaters certainly can do that, whether that means FM simplex, VHF weak signal modes, or their hobby repeater. This means linked networks that connect people in different communities. It means cross-band links that takes the isolation out exploring other bands. It means IRLP and EchoLink bringing people from all over the world into a common conversation.
The reasons that the "old guard" sticks with this model are pretty easy for me to figure out:
- They feel threatened by the "outside world" and all of the change going on. Ham radio is their isolated bubble sanctuary where they can pretend the past still exists.
- They have control over something, in a world where things increasingly seem out of their control.
- Since they call the shots, others have to come to them, hat in hand, and acknowledge their power and wisdom in order to get anything done. They are not only in control; they are relevant and respected.
- They don't really "get" the internet, nor do they trust it.
- This is supposed to be hard, in their minds. That's what makes it worth doing. Making it easy to talk to people all over somehow cheapens the experience.
I would also go so far as to say that we agree the future is with fewer machines, more linking, wide area coverage, and incorporating the internet where possible.
What I find bizarre is that expressing these opinions is somehow seen as heresy, and is grounds for shunning any operator that does so. There will be negative repercussions from our chat, and they will come from the same arrogant elite that so smoothly asks for money or volunteer work from those same heretics.
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