(
EDIT: our next net is
tentatively scheduled for
Wednesday, April 3rd at 8:30pm provided someone agrees to be net control
.)
Now that permission has been granted to use a centrally-located repeater, and after an impromptu dry run by myself and
@lhracing, I am ready to hold our first official RME on-air ham radio net. All licensed ham radio operators on RME are invited to join in. Any RME members who own ham radio equipment but are not licensed are welcome to listen, but are
not allowed to transmit and join the net (except via approved third-party communication). You've probably already read these details in the other thread, but in case you missed them:
- we will use the 146.940 repeater (88.5 tone) located on Farnsworth Peak
- this will take place Wednesday night at 8:30pm
I intentionally selected a repeater which requires a tone for access. This means all would-be participants have a homework assignment: in order to join us, you'll need to figure out how to program your radio for tone output (on transmission only), and configure it accordingly
in advance. Most Japanese radios will make this fairly simple; if you have a more complicated Chinese model such as a Baofeng and are having difficulty figuring this out, let me know and I will offer assistance.
This repeater was also selected due to its location. Sitting atop Farnsworth Peak, this repeater offers good coverage from Ogden to Payson, and should also work for guys out west in the Grantsville/Tooele area as well. From what I saw in the other thread, this means it should be a good location for the vast majority of RME members who want to participate. Having said that, we are all experimenting. If you go to participate only to discover your exact location has poor coverage, we'll talk about it later and see what we can do to improve your experience the next time. Also, if you only have a handheld radio and are a considerable distance from Farnsworth, you may have difficulty participating. We'll just have to try it and see how well it works.
I selected Wednesday night at 9pm for a few reasons. For starters, it is a time when most of us are probably at home for the evening. Also, it seems to be a time when this repeater is not already tied up with another net. (If we are surprised and there happens to be something else on this repeater that night at 9pm, we'll bump ahead to 9:30 or 10:00 to give the other net time to complete.) If this day/time proves problematic for some of you, we can look at moving things around in the future to accommodate more members. I will try to be as flexible as possible.
Lastly, I will be net control (meaning the person leading the net). While I have joined dozens and dozens of nets over the years, I've never been net control for a single one. This means I, too, will be learning and stepping out of my comfort zone... so
nobody here should feel frightened or nervous because they are attempting something new. We're all in this together, and RME is a judgement-free zone.
Right now, I do not expect this to become a permanent weekly net. I envision us doing this a few times, for sure, to make sure everybody gets some practice and experience to get them on their way to comfortable radio use. Having said that, we
do have permission to use the repeater as much as we like, so I guess this is really up to the body of RME and not just me. If you guys decide you're in it for the long haul, I can be as well.
Are there any questions?
