Dead Air

[Keith Thompson]

A week ago I purchased a Yaesu FT-60R handheld radio and replaced the stock rubber duck antenna with a Diamond SRH77CA. Since that time, I've monitored each of the local repeaters for some period of time. I can hear the IDs every ten minutes or so, but during the entire week, I've not heard a single person on any of the repeaters. I've received no responses to any of my calls. I actually contacted the store because I thought the radio was faulty and then drove around to get closer to the various local repeaters to make sure I could trip them. I've decided the radio is working, so basically the 2-meter and 70cm bands are totally dead in my area. This is surprising, since my town is just outside Portland, Maine, and I would think there would be quite a bit of activity.

Has anyone else experienced this phenomenon in your area?

 

[Tallman]

I wonder if they are running digital?

 

[2RT307]

Always check during drive time... 7-9 am and 5-7 pm. And see if there are any nets listed on club web sites. And Tallman may be right about the digital thing...

73,
Brett

 

[Keith Thompson]

My club had an online meeting tonight, but the repeater system they were using was out of range for me. I did catch snatches of conversation on the UHF repeater, but not strong enough for me to get in. In the meantime, drive time or no, the local repeaters near me are dead. I get repeater idents and nothing else.

 

[2RT307]

My club had an online meeting tonight, but the repeater system they were using was out of range for me. I did catch snatches of conversation on the UHF repeater, but not strong enough for me to get in. In the meantime, drive time or no, the local repeaters near me are dead. I get repeater idents and nothing else.

Bummer. You might try making a dipole and hanging it vertically, or use a mag mount antenna on a metal surface to see if you can get better range to your club repeater. Or a j pole!

73,
Brett

 

[w9cll]

The repeaters here in Chicago are dead most of the time except for morning and afternoon drive times. It's rare that I use vhf/uhf anymore, I am mostly on 15 and 17 meters with occasional trip to 80 to check into Mid-Cars.

 

[Big Kahuna]

Yup - pretty dead here as well except for during drive time or during a net. It's always people that know each other as well not really interested in talking to other people. Pretty boring.

 

[Tallman]

I too have noticed the dead air out there. I also noticed when I printed out the repeater listing there were three tones listed. I think the last number unkeys the amplifier in the repeater..

 

[sunbulls]

Extremely low activity repeaters are prime candidates for connecting into an IRLP or Echolink network. I’d ask those repeater owners if any one of them is interested in making the connection. The East Coast Reflector is active with worldwide activity. Nothing boring about it.

 

[BJ radionut]

2M Repeaters here same citation...Most of the regular traffic is on SIMPLEX and requires outdoor antenna, excellent feedline, more power than HT's and pretty good height (35 ft. +) and the antenna with good gain.
I have a Diamond F23H(almost 8 db gain) feed with LMR400 at 48ft at the base
I talk fairly regular to stations 30 to 100+ miles away using from 25-100 watts.
Repeaters are "drive-time usage" and SKYWARN operations...
Otherwise from base station I use only SIMPLEX for "rag-chewing"
All the Best
Gary

PS: When working SKYWARN or chatting with a mobile...I use like > 5 watts otherwise I'll bring up 3 or 4 repeaters all at the same time, with my present set-up
440 systems require even more work, power, Height and quality feedline to achieve these similar results.

https://www.repeaterbook.com/repeaters/Display_SS.php?state_id=23&band=14&loc=%&call=%&use=%

https://www.repeaterbook.com/repeat...nd6=&loc=%&call=%&status_id=%&features=&use=%

 

[Keith Thompson]

Thanks, guys. I've actually gotten a few nibbles on one of the local UHF repeaters on my FT-60R HT, but just snatches that break squelch a few words at a time. I'm debating grabbing a Yaesu FT-7900 for a dual-band base station. Even if there's not much activity I can use it for the club's online meetings. Thinking of picking up a copper J-pole and mounting it on a PVC mast at the peak of the roof. That should get me enough range to reach the repeaters the club uses.

 

[firerunner]

The repeaters in my area are pretty busy and we have a lot in the area. I have just started doing some simplex and that has been pretty busy also. Soon i will try some SSB but so far have not been able to get out and do that. Tram makes a pretty nice dual band base antenna with decent gain thats not real expensive, I have one at 40' to the base and fed with LMR 400 it does pretty good. Go on amazon and look up TRAM Amateur Dual Band Base Antenna 1481 its 17' tall and $54.26

• 8.3Dbd gain vhf 144mhz-148mhz
• 11.7Dbd gain uhf 430mhz-450mhz

 

[Keith Thompson]

The repeaters in my area are pretty busy and we have a lot in the area. I have just started doing some simplex and that has been pretty busy also. Soon i will try some SSB but so far have not been able to get out and do that. Tram makes a pretty nice dual band base antenna with decent gain thats not real expensive, I have one at 40' to the base and fed with LMR 400 it does pretty good. Go on amazon and look up TRAM Amateur Dual Band Base Antenna 1481 its 17' tall and $54.26

• 8.3Dbd gain vhf 144mhz-148mhz
• 11.7Dbd gain uhf 430mhz-450mhz

Thanks, I looked it up on Amazon and will keep it in mind. One nice thing about this forum…I get to draw from the experiences of people who've been at this a lot longer than I have.

 

[ButtFuzz]

Repeaters in my area are dead, dead, dead. Canceled due to lack of interest. When they were active, the usual suspects chatted every day about the exact thing they chatted about yesterday. And, of course, there is one person that thinks they own the repeater and makes sure that everyone knows he like to hear himself talk.

Newbs couldn't get a word in edgewise... but why should they?

There is one repeater in my area that is active... and the discussion mostly revolves around repurposing some Motorola HTs that came from the local railroad.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

 

[w9cll]

BF this is why I don't even bother with V/U anymore.