The attraction factor

After the mid-day HandiHam net today, I had a brief chat with a ham in River Falls, WI -- W9ISQ (Don).
I sometimes hear "9" callsigns on the 146.850 morning net, but not anywhere else. Don is not normally on VHF/UHF, but he was at home today due to the cold weather (I imagine, at least) and threw out his sign on the HandiHam VHF .450 machine. I was at home sick, and I waited for three others to talk to W9ISQ before I had my chance. People talk about a lack of activity here, but it's really relatively crowded compared to a lot areas of the country -- especially for the Midwest.

I've wondered over the past year or so why there's so little cross-border activity. The 146.850 repeater has a remote receive site about ten miles into WI, which should make two metre contact pretty easy for the west-central area of that State. And the UHF state-wide network (WINET) has a linked machine in the north-east metro (Arden Hills) that reaches out here to Plymouth. The Stillwater 147.060 reaches out to the western suburbs here quite well, too. I would imagine that it also reaches into Wisconsin about as far. Others, such as the TCFMC's VHF .760 machine, claim to reach into western WI. I'm not familiar enough with the St. Paul machines to know how well their coverage extends across the border.

After talking with W9ISQ, I'm beginning to get the idea that there just isn't a lot of FM activity in Wisconsin in the first place.

The WI UHF network is dead, outside of a few scheduled nets. When I asked Don about that, he just mentioned problems with people "ker-chunking" the network and not keying up long enough before speaking so that all of the links can open. That hardly seems like a good reason for people to stay off the network, at least to me. People "ker-chunk" pretty much every repeater to see if they can hit it, and that doesn't drive people away. Don was one of the people that helped build that network -- I guess that he works putting up, maintaining, and climbing on towers -- and he seemed pretty unenthusiastic about it. Likewise with the new VHF/digital state-wide network being put together. It's all just a yawn. Nobody is on the networks because nobody is on the networks to talk to. That's the vicious circle that I think a lot of communities face.

HandiHam has had dramatic success, relatively speaking, in drawing activity. It's created by having two daily nets, announcements, and an EchoLink conference server that's known all over the world. Local people come there because there are people to talk to, and you never know what country is going to drop in on EchoLink. From the other side, people come in from other States and countries because there are actually people here to talk to. Activity draws activity. People want to monitor repeaters where something happens, and they join in to conversations because they just happened to be monitoring.

Now, other repeaters have the same elements that HandiHam has. The UHF .425 has great coverage (well into WI) and EchoLink, for example. The New Brighton 145.290 has decent metro-area coverage and EchoLink. The Oakdale 146.850 has exceptional coverage even out to the rural areas. But none of these draw the level of activity that the HandiHam network does.

First and foremost, HandiHam has an EchoLink conference server. That's big, because it allows multiple connections. People can hang out without actually transmitting without monopolising the node. Other links in the network can be connected; other machines and just simplex links. And IRLP access is made possible while all of this other stuff is going on. Just having a node isn't enough to take advantage of EchoLink's potential.

Secondly, the network has decent local coverage. The VHF machine in the west and the UHF machines from south-west to south-east, plus the central metro, make it relatively easy to access. Others have better coverage, doubtlessly. But the quality of the machines used and the reliability within the coverage area is a positive factor. It's adequate, and the network isn't hobbled.

Last, and probably least important, is the cross-band coverage. While the 220 MHz link is currently down, there still is UHF and VHF full-time cross-link. The UHF .425 is planning a cross-band link, but nobody else has that right now.

I had a short chat with KD0UIH (Chuck) last night, and one the things that came up is that both of us are "repeater nomads". We don't have any specific repeater that we call home, and we both kind of would like to settle on one place where we can be found with reasonable reliability.

I've spent a lot of time on dead repeaters, trying to create activity. No matter which machine I settle on, I will probably have a secondary dead repeater that I'll try to draw activity to. Or maybe a repeater that's not totally dead, but just has light activity. I'm kind of leaning toward the 444.425 as my main hangout, because the future addition of the VHF link won't isolate me from the two-metre crowd. And the Maple Plain 147.000 repeater is one that has a little activity, but has interesting people and is on the "frontier" of the metro-area coverage, so to speak. One of the radio clubs that has really attracted me has been the Maple Grove Radio Club that runs the 147.000 machine. But the HandiHam network will always be huge for me because of the 220 MHz link, and the EchoLink capability.

I'm not sure which way Chuck will go, but the .425 is a good option for him for the same reason: the VHF link will be in his back yard. It should be intriguing to hear his reasoning when he does arrive at a decision.

The hard thing isn't trying to find a good option; it's choosing from so many good options. I have to wave goodbye to a lot of repeaters, or else I'm still wandering all over.