Note: These
observations are just that, no more than a little
description on how
amateur radio repeaters are used in the
New York City metropolitan area. Practices and acceptable
behavior may change from
region to region and
country to country.
Briefly, an amateur radio repeater is a device that retransmits signals so that they may be heard over a wider range than single
frequency ("
simplex")
communications. Repeaters have an
input and
output frequency. An operator transmits into the input and is heard on the output, which is the frequency
monitored to "hear" the repeater. Sometimes a tone system like
CTCSS (
PL) is used to block
interference.
To use a repeater,
transmit on the input with the correct CTCSS tone. When releasing the
microphone, the operator should hear a few seconds of
carrier before the signal drops below the
squelch. Many repeaters nowadays have a "
bleep" or
chime to tell you if the transmission was successful. Bleeps also remove any
necessity to say "
over" or "
go ahead" at the end of a transmission. Use of these words have survived in areas where end of transmission tones are not common.
To
announce you're around, just say "W2xxx
listening" or "W2xxx
monitoring". Some people get
creative and say "W2xxx listening and
standing by". Usually a simple call works well enough.
CQ is generally not used on repeaters since stations are expected to have strong signals through the repeater.
To identify every ten minutes as per
FCC law, just say your callsign at the end of your "turn". While you're talking to more than one station in a "
roundtable", pass the conversation along by naming the next person to go. When leaving, you can repeat the other station's and your call sign, or just give your call sign with some announcement like "
I'm in the driveway now" or "
good night" or something, just to let everyone else know if you're staying on or not. If you are left alone as the last person in a conversation, just say you're either "
clear" (shutting down the station) or "listening" at the end of the final transmission to tell whether or not you're willing to stay on the repeater.
Some operators make a big
to-do about other operators using a sort of new ham radio
lingo that's partly
CB and partly
HF (
shortwave) usage. One example is saying "
QSL" instead of "yes" or "okay". On
CW (
morse code), QSL? means "will you confirm this contact with a
QSL card?", a
verification of the contact having taken place. Another CW term misued is
QTH for "where do you live?". QTH? means "your
location?" in CW. Another is blatant use of CB lingo, including "
handle" and "
roger", though in my experience the
CB-ese drops out after the newly minted operator has spent a few months on the air. For nearly every case, use common, understandable
language when on the repeater. What is necessary for
slow data transmission on CW is
irrelevant and perhaps a bit
silly on
voice communications.
As a tight
room with
200 regular visitors might be, ham radio repeaters are more than a bit
cliquish. Yet many operators prefer higher-frequency communications to
HF; given the high number of operators restricted to the upper bands it's
crucial that everyone at least be able to
understand one another.