Alott more ham operators than will admit got there start in CB of course back when allott of them started like me CB was ham it was all under the fcc control and you had to pass atest just to get a 27 mhz license. My first call was kjw9434 back then that was a cb only call. Then they went to just fill out the form adn send it in. The fc would assign a call then they went to the fill in your own call then the total deragulating. I myself was a freebander of sorts back in the old days we ran what was call 305 which was above channel 23 all we had. Then the 40 channels came and took that away. That was when i got to listening around and decided it was time to get with the program and got busy and got my ticket. Most ham operators will welcome all new comers and help them in any way they can. As long as like others have said they act responsably and leave allott of the 11m bad habits there. There are some good CB'ers and there are some bad ham operators we need to keep the good and get rid of the bad in both. So the best way on the ham operator side is to incurage more good operators on the bands and help guide them in the right direction and educate them in the proper operation and not brow beat them about how bad they were to be cb'ers. As far as 2m repeaters go I feel they are as bad as most cb radios and hardly ever use one. It's to easy to pick up the microphone of a good hf rig and talk any where you want when ever you want just do th calculations for muf and numbers of spots and go to thatr band and make a contact. Or just remember 20/17/15/40 day time 75mtrs at night for local. just the oposite for dx.