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Old 20th Oct 2018, 11:34 am   #241
Peter.N.
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Default Re: Users of 2 metre Amateur Band?

2 metres is busy this morning, quite a number of special event stations. I just worked the Chalk Pits museum, I must go there one day.

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Old 20th Oct 2018, 12:52 pm   #242
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Default Re: Users of 2 metre Amateur Band?

Chalk Pits museum is a great day out,been many times when they used to have "Radio Days".
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Old 20th Oct 2018, 8:08 pm   #243
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Default Re: Users of 2 metre Amateur Band?

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Originally Posted by David G4EBT View Post
At that link, I'm baffled by the statement:

"Short callsigns are greatly prized by radio amateurs..."

Errm, why?
When you're contesting, saving time in the inevitable '599 [QSO-number] QRZ QRZ!' relay-race by having a short callsign can make the difference between a contest top-placing and an also-ran entry.
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Old 20th Oct 2018, 8:26 pm   #244
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Default Re: Users of 2 metre Amateur Band?

Definitely. Also for lazy people like me I spent a long time optimising my callsign for ease of sending with CW. Worked.
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Old 20th Oct 2018, 11:43 pm   #245
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MrBungle, So you're G0EEE? I did wonder who had that one.

PeterN, I loved the Chalk Pits Museum (Formerly Amberley Working museum?) when I went there quite some time ago now. I considered their wireless / TV 'hut' to be considerably superior to anything I found at the Science museum at around the same time.

I'm afraid you may not find 2m quite so lively on your forthcoming visit to the North Yorkshire area - it's such a vast area it's difficult to suggest any good high operating spots to you without knowing roughly where you are heading for.
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Old 21st Oct 2018, 8:42 am   #246
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Default Re: Users of 2 metre Amateur Band?

G0? Surely he would apply for G5EEE

When i got my morse I was slow off the mark and lost G8YJI, gaining instead G4YVM. In retrospect, as a cw op, Im rather glad that happened. Even though the difference is one dot, the cadence is rather nicer on YVM. I think so anyway.

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Old 21st Oct 2018, 10:01 am   #247
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Two letter call signs could in some cases be shorter in Morse than three letter ones and so attractive to contesters who need to get their call sign out quickly.

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Old 21st Oct 2018, 10:15 am   #248
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I don't have 2m mobile now, haven't for years but take my IC706 to Scotland with me, nice and quiet on HF up there.

2m was alive last night, lots of French stations and it's alive with them this morning. I heard 2m FM stations from Ireland, Brittany and Holland last night, no one on the calling channel though. I called CQ something I rarely do because no one replies and three stations came back from Worthing and Newhaven. It's almost wall to wall French stations this morning.

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Old 21st Oct 2018, 11:23 am   #249
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Default Re: Users of 2 metre Amateur Band?

That will be why my Freeview TV is a mess this morning.
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Old 21st Oct 2018, 11:35 am   #250
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Default Re: Users of 2 metre Amateur Band?

The original statement on the website was:

"Short callsigns are greatly prized by radio amateurs and it is thought this move could lead to many more people taking the Intermediate and Advanced exams".

I questioned that 'passive voice' statement as it was just an unattributed opinion with no underpinning evidence to support it. But let's suppose that it will indeed stimulate Foundation Licence holders who might otherwise not have bothered to progress to intermediate of full, but for the new callsigns. How many of them are likely to be able to send CW at say 18WPM or more to enable them to become competent CW contest operators? And if they could become that competent, how many would actually enter contests?

And let's suppose that instead of my callsign being G4EBT, it had been G4EB, or G4EEE - how much of an edge would that give me in a contest? Or if my callsign had been G4EBF, sent at 18 WPM, how much longer would it have taken to send 'F' rather than 'T'? No more than a second or so.

I remain unconvinced that a new batch of callsigns will have any impact whatsoever, but I wouldn't in any way wish to detract from the enthusiasm and optimism of the writer of the sentence however much I feel that it's misplaced.

As to contests (and DX-Peditions), they bring out the very worst in bad behaviour, rendering the band unusable for other amateurs who wish to have normal polite contacts not just an exchange of callsigns, the significance of which is the operators have no interest in each other - just in getting the callsigns in their log.

Getting back to the original topic of 2M activity, it seems to me that on-air activity on any band has become inversely proportionate to the number of amateurs who hold a licence. 250 amateurs within 20 miles of me, (22 in my village - only two with aerials), but even back in 2003 - minimal activity. Just the way it is.

It's not really an issue for me as I've been off air for fifteen years and have disposed of all of my equipment, so I'm just a bystander.

When I was licensed in 1974 there were 27,000 UK amateurs - fewer than half the number today, (though non-one knows how many actual amateurs there are now because some hold three licences), but activity on all bands in the 70s - including 2M - was really quite high. However, 1974 pre-dated internet, smartphones, social media, skype, facetime, texting etc. Back then, people had hobbies and more settled lifestyles whereas nowadays they seem to have fleeting pastimes rather than hobbies. It doesn't just apply to amateur radio, but to all hobbies. These are societal changes outside the control of the hobby.

Given how many thousands of Foundation licences have been issued, how many are heard on air? Any?

Just musing really - I don't mind at all if others don't share my points of view.
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Old 21st Oct 2018, 9:14 pm   #251
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That will be why my Freeview TV is a mess this morning.
Looking on the Hepburn Tropo Forecast a couple of days ago it was predicting a period of strong Tropo activity in the western English channel area - very little over the North Sea, though, unfortunately.
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Old 21st Oct 2018, 11:17 pm   #252
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Default Re: Users of 2 metre Amateur Band?

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...you may not find 2m quite so lively on your forthcoming visit to the North Yorkshire area - it's such a vast area it's difficult to suggest any good high operating spots...
We were on holiday in North Yorkshire earlier this year, quite high up on the moors and overlooking Whitby. There is an excellent FM/D-Star dual-mode repeater near Robin Hoods Bay which was S9+30dB at our caravan site and workable on 150mW, but despite calling CQ on both modes ad nauseam for the first three days, and sending an e-mail to the club that runs it, I heard nothing. No calls at all. B*gger all. So I gave up.

I've recently become aware of 'network radio' which is internet-based, uses VoIP over the GSM data network and has nothing to do with Amateur Radio, but which seemingly attracts a large number of licenced radio amateurs. The traffic is very reminiscent of some of the well-sited 2-metre repeaters back in the 1980s, with lots of mobile operators. I conclude that mobile operating has been made so difficult by the imposition (by the RSGB) of 12.5kHz channels, CTCSS and restricted deviation on repeaters, and illogical TX/RX splits, that most licenced amateurs just don't bother any more.
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Old 22nd Oct 2018, 9:43 am   #253
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Worked a 13 year old M7 yesterday - he was on Charmouth beach with his dad a 2E0 with one of those cheap handhelds, sounded very good and 5/9+. Nice to hear youngsters taking up the hobby.

Turns out that his dad bought an HF rig off me a few years ago so has been here.

2m practically dead again today.

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Old 22nd Oct 2018, 11:00 am   #254
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Default Re: Users of 2 metre Amateur Band?

It seems to me that short callsigns are only prized when the current holder has some genuine connection with the original holder of an old callsign. It is the age and the association of the callsign which gives it value, not the length.

Of course, the next danger is that Ofcom will start trading in personalised callsigns - like DVLA do for number plates.
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Old 22nd Oct 2018, 11:01 am   #255
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Default Re: Users of 2 metre Amateur Band?

Quote:
Originally Posted by David G4EBT View Post
When I was licensed in 1974 there were 27,000 UK amateurs - fewer than half the number today, (though non-one knows how many actual amateurs there are now because some hold three licences), but activity on all bands in the 70s - including 2M - was really quite high. However, 1974 pre-dated internet, smartphones, social media, skype, facetime, texting etc. Back then, people had hobbies and more settled lifestyles whereas nowadays they seem to have fleeting pastimes rather than hobbies. It doesn't just apply to amateur radio, but to all hobbies. These are societal changes outside the control of the hobby.
Pretty much hits the nail on the head; plus, fifty years ago the hobby was much easier to get into with simple receivers and equipment that a beginner could build and get results. A LW/MW broadcast set was an expensive item and there might often just one in the household. Building a crystal set or a simple set and getting reception was magical. I remember the thrill of hearing amateurs for the first time a couple of miles away on topband on a one valve set. This opened a window on a world of one to one communication - our household didn't have a telephone until 1974. Today mobile phones are so commonplace that those that don't have them are considered the odd person out and internet communication is taken for granted. The sort of thing that a cheap smartphone does today was in the 1960s right out of James Bond. The magic has gone - times have moved on and the amateur radio frontiers are the preserve of the ultra-technical.

I remember 2m in the late 60s/early 70s and it could be very quiet at times. Home built converters and modified PMR transmitters were the norm and there was a lot of experimentation done and fun to be had without the possession of fantastic skills. For activity its heyday was probably in the late 70s and early 80s with the advent of compact commercial equipment at a reasonable price.
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Old 22nd Oct 2018, 11:04 am   #256
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I confess I've never spent any time listening to that Robin Hood's Bay repeater despite spending most weekends within its footprint because I thought it was digital-only - maybe it was when I was first aware of it. I'll have to see if I can receive it in my usual weekend location.

Phil is right about the difficulty of using repeaters when mobile: I was thinking exactly that on a journey from Keswick up to the rally at Galashiels yesterday - with a radio scanning on all the standard repeater frequencies all the way I heard plenty of repeater IDs but found myself realising that if I heard someone calling through one of them I would be powerless to respond, assuming the repeater would require me to be transmitting the correct CTCSS tone if I were to respond. It would have been too much to try to handle while driving at the speed limit on a rain-wracked, twisting A road.

What's needed in those cases is a feature on the radio which, on realising there was a CTCSS marker on the last signal being received, automatically adopts that same CTCSS tone for TX until such time as you change frequency. My old 1990s mobile radio doesn't have that, possibly some of the modern radios may have it.

The 'new' splits on 70cms (430/438, or something like that) at least have the merit of moving the repeater input frequencies away from those used by the LPD devices discussed earlier in the thread.
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Old 22nd Oct 2018, 6:50 pm   #257
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I was at the rally at Galashiels yesterday and it was encouraging to see the hall full of people chatting, buying, and generally enjoying themselves. I monitored the local repeaters on the way there and back, as well as the 2M simplex calling frequency but never heard a peep. There was one lad trying several times for a reply on simplex for a lot of the way back down the A68 but didn't get a reply. There must have been a couple of hundred callsigns with mobile capabilities (myself included but no hands free) around but not a word was heard. Strange situation. Maybe everyone is using the new modes that I can't receive. Anyway, brilliant rally as usual although I haven't managed to get for a couple of years, and I came away with even more spares/radios/tat that I probably will not have the time to use.
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Old 22nd Oct 2018, 6:59 pm   #258
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Sadly, it seems to hit the Jamboree on the air weekend most years and that ties me up doing other amateur radio things.

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Old 22nd Oct 2018, 7:02 pm   #259
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Over the last few weeks I've had my FT-290 sitting on the FM calling channel 24/7 and heard almost nothing and CQ's get no reply. Occasionally, one guy pops up and very quickly pings his buddy, and then they QSY down to ~144.6 and talk about caravans.
Admittedly, I'm in a poor QTH for VHF.

I'm now pruning trees with the intention of putting up a 5MHz dipole.

B
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Old 22nd Oct 2018, 7:35 pm   #260
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There was one lad trying several times for a reply on simplex for a lot of the way back down the A68 but didn't get a reply.
This is even more puzzling when you go to a rally like Blackpool and see something like 200 cars parked up and down the road and in front of the venue, all forested with aerials, and yet very little is heard on the way to or from the rally.

Although I rarely talk and drive now I think I would have taken pity on your repeat caller, and even pulled over for a while to talk to him.

There are some good high spots on the way back down to Tyneside, The first actually on the A68 at Carter bar with its convenient lay-by, then perhaps the best spot of all on top of the Cottonshope ranges a couple of miles to the east of the A68 at Byrness, but only accessable when the red flags are not flying.

Finally on the A696 (off your route, I imagine, Biggles) there's another layby near the masts at Ottercops Moss, the many ruined pillboxes in the surrounding area making it obvious that this must have been the site of a Chain Home station originally, and therefore unsurprisingly a good spot for radio ever since.

I headed off to Edinburgh via the train for the rest of the day and didn't head back down until mid evening - by then everything was quiet.
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