Quote:
Originally Posted by Jon_G4MDC
Anyone giving a thought to those who maintain repeaters (2m or otherwise) paying out of their own pockets for almost everything? There are many...
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Possibly so, in my experience there is usually an amateur club or repeater group who actively fundraise for the repeater(s) at rallies and have a yearly jumble sale of donated radio related items, etc. When I was really active and used to go to every local rally without fail, I used to hand over a tenner to the folks who kept the two most local ones running every year even though I didn't use the repeaters much myself.
I can imagine that in areas with very sparse amateur populations - ironically exactly the sort of area where repeater coverage can be most valuable, the power / site insurance and so on are quietly paid for by one, two, or three individuals. The least we can do is to use them a bit more.
I spent a week up in the eastern Scottish borders area recently - I had a lot to occupy me but I had a radio on scanning from time to time and that region is remarkably well served by 2m repeaters based in (approximately) Selkirk, Berwick, Duns and Lauder, plus 70cms repeaters in Hawick and Duns again. There may even be one or two more. But as you might guess, very little traffic on them.