The LA repeater at 147.435 was my first exposure to licensed ham conversation.
Listen to the LA repeater at 147.435MHz 
(WARNING: Foul language and adult content. If you're at the office or kids are around, turn it down.)
Story:
I'd studied for my ham Technician's License, bought a dual band HT radio, read sample exchanges online of what you say, what the other guy says back, read voraciously about the hobby and the opinions of those in it. Then I went to RadioReference.com
(a wealth of streams and information ), and tuned in a ham repeater that had the most listeners, 147.435.
Certainly, I thought, something interesting must be happening there.
There certainly was.
The profanity and utter disregard for common courtesy and protocol was worse than anything I'd ever heard over CB, and that's saying something. I knew from eHam.net 
and other places that there were lots of people that respected the hobby and had a low opinion of this kind of crap, but I wasn't about to run the gauntlet through it to find respectful hobbyists if this was what the majority were like.[1]
I kept listening locally over a real radio and also found another repeater on RadioRefence.com that exemplifies what's good about the hobby. It's the WIN System Amateur Repeater Network and it's pretty active. It's in California and most activity is centered there, but I've heard folks join from far away as Hawaii, Tennessee, North Carolina, New Zealand, and England.
It's not a constant talkfest 24/7, but if you let it stream, you'll hear the chatter every few minutes.
Listen to the WIN System
Amateur Repeater Network here 
If ham bands ever get diced up further for corporate fat cats wanting fatter bandwidth for their cell phone networks, it'll be partly due to irresponsible folks that have abused the airwaves like those on 147.435. It's hard to tell if they're acting or as one QRZ forum 
contributor wrote, are just "pathetic codependent losers."
Does it matter?
[1]
Believe me, I'm no prude. Anyone that knows me knows I have a healthy respect for 4-letter words. What I can't abide is disrespect for the hobby and the technology. You can be a foul-mouthed antisocial nogoodnik the rest of the time, but when you pick up your mic or keyboard or paint brush or wrench or whatever tool you use to engage with people, put on your big boy pants and act like a grownup.
Started: 2012-03-29
Well since you appear to have listened but once nad formed your opinion it is you who are the loser. The group on 145.435 is certainly unconventional, but they do indeed offer the Southern California community a great deal of "good" in spite of not fitting your cookie-cutter "grownup' definition - hams or not; so what. Search the web if you want to find their involvement in food drives, Toys for Tots, medical emergencies (helping not creating), fund raising events for a multitude of charities - from childrens hospitals to gay rights organizations to disaster relief. Are they "potty moth and rowdy" at times? Yep. Perhaps even more often than not; yet in over 30 years the FCC has NEVER found it possible to shut them down, even though they have gone through over ten trustees and ten repeater locations. The repeater is cleanly run high-tech system running better equipment than some of the rice-boxes owner by the "Hi-Hi OM" clubs who are content to use their systems to afford users an opportunity to remind hubby or wife to tell their mate to puck up a loaf of bread and a quart of milk on the way home from the gym! The users AND abusers of 147.435 do far more than swear and raise hell -- they contribute to their communities, to strangers, their churches, the synagogues, to police, fire and rescue organizations and many in the Greater Los Angeles area would do well to follow their example! They are NOT as some believe - just a bunch of potty mouth, uneducated fools who flaunt the law. They are amateur radio operators who operate a bit differently under the First Amendment AND they do it quite well in spite of the objections of the HI-HI OM complainers. It has been this way for over three DECADES and it will be this way as long as FREE AND OPEN REPEATER OWNERS EXIST! THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME. SOOOOOO "Clarence ODDDBODY minus the callsign ..........de the former N6GNQ - now KM5YE / JOHN / Rio Rancho, New Mexico IN YOUR FACE.
ReplyDelete"If ham bands ever get diced up further for corporate fat cats wanting fatter bandwidth for their cell phone networks, it'll be partly due to irresponsible folks that have abused the airwaves like those on 147.435. It's hard to tell if they're acting or as one QRZ forum contributor wrote, are just "pathetic codependent losers."
ReplyDeleteHOGWASH! If the ham bands "...ever get diced up...", it WILL BE because there are dozens of UNused repeaters that sit idle for days, sometimes weeks in large metropolitan areas such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Washington, DC, and other large wide-coverage ares that have dozens of coordinated seldom used repeaters on multiple spectrums. There they sit - never used or used by a handful of people to report what everyone already knows; it 72 degrees, it's raining, teh kids are off to school, my back aches, gasoline is expensive, I have gas my farts stink the list is endless and the so-called "conversations" short and infrequent. TEXTING is UP .... QSO's are DOWN and amateur radio is inundated with grumpy old farts who either have lost interest in the HF bands or have to fight the CCR's imposed upon them by the structured neighborhoods where the tree huggers and "I want to see the beauty of the high rise buildings" (HUH?) not some ugly "tower" prevail! DON'T BLAME the folks who operate in a tiny portion of the country (147.435 in Los Angeles) and try to make them responsible IF the FCC should yank a portion of 2-meters , 220MHz, 440MHz or more from "amateurs". EVERY AMATEUR who sits on his or her butt and chooses to operate very little, not at all or only on one or two "bands" is as responsible as any single group. The 147.435 repeater is ACTIVE which is far more than I can say for the MANY UNUTILIZED REPEATERS and SPECTRUMS all across the portions of the amateurs bands now assigned for amateur use. USE 'EM OR LOSE 'EM FOLKS! DON'T BLAME A FEW HAMS WHO ARE NOT FROM THE COOKIE CUTTER IMAGE YOU SEE IN YOUR NARROW MINDS! They are NOT the cause of YOUR foolish concerns; go look in a damned mirror! The problem just may be looking back at ya'! 73 de The former N6GNQ / Now KM5YE / Rio Rancho, New Mexico via WD5JOY also in Rio Rancho, New Mexico via Google and Company!
Nicely worded, KM5YE. I wish all radio enthusiasts cared enough to tell it like it is; if more people knew just what real hams were like, we'd have more folks in the hobby. And no one telling anyone what we can say how to say it. Real free speech sometimes means real 4 letter words. Our rights aren't based on a piece of paper from the government giving us "permission", and they sure as heck aren't protected by one. If we don't protect our rights ourselves, we pretty soon won't have any to protect.
ReplyDeleteFreedom isn't free, and sometimes the cost is hurt feelings from folks who can't stomach a healthy dose of reality once in a while. We send soldiers overseas to die for those rights. Hurt feelings? Give me break.
In fact, I don't pay much attention to anything the government tells me to. My mortgage, my driver's license, my taxes, just more ways big brother tries to control us if you ask me, and if anyone really wants the truth, they WILL ask me, because I know what the truth is and most folks can't handle it.
Some folks do need rules, but some rules need to be broken otherwise the rule makers get to thinking they can make any rule they want, and they can't, not while I'm still around. Let 'em try.
--kd8osb
For those that didn't get the joke, I was being sarcastic. I think KM5YE was being obnoxious and I don't really believe the tone of what I wrote in response. I thought that was obvious but some may have read it at face value, so I wanted to clarify.
ReplyDelete--csc aka KD8OSB aka Clarence
And I only work 2m and 70cm, and I'm usually sitting down, so I guess I'm part of the problem.
Delete--kd8osb