Randy wrote:
> The complaints have been that the same one
> or two people are constantly rag chewing at literally all hours of
> the day and night and go on forever. I know these are open to the
> ham community and anyone has a perfect right to use them. I
> personally have had no problem with it; they seem like nice, friendly
> people. I also know running a reflector on our local repeater is an
> optional thing. I just hate to stop doing it because I think it can
> be a good thing. Like I said, I hate to say anything at all.
> However, when I get no less than 15 emails and 3 phone calls in the
> past week complaining, I must act. I cannot imagine other cities
> doing what we have been doing are not getting similar complaints.
First you have to ask yourself... are the complainers participating or
just listening?
They have the "power" to change the topic of conversation by simply
keying up their mics and speaking. Want a tech topic? Bring one up.
In running a repeater club for a number of years now, and also IRLP
Reflectors... I've given up on trying to make everyone happy all of the
time. In fact, I've found it's more healthy to put the control of what
they're listening to into their hands, and letting them run with it.
The reason I ask is this... in my "tenure" as an IRLP Reflector
operator, we have had on and off similar "complaints" from some node
owners, for some Reflector channels.
The reality, when we looked into it was, that the nodes connected wanted
"better content" (to use an Internet website term), but didn't do
anything to PROVIDE that content. Similar to a lot of things in Amateur
Radio these days... people wanted others to provide something
"interesting" for them to listen to! It all led back to "entitlement"
attitudes. ("I should be able to always listen to interesting,
technical content! But I don't have to provide any!")
Hahahaha... quite funny, really. Or sad, depending on if you get
worked up over such things.
I figure, it's ham radio... don't like what you hear... apply Riley's
last Dayton speech in 2007 and "spin the big knob" on the rig.
So... what we found was that they were unhappy with LISTENING to the
people actually USING the Reflector channel, but were just "whiners in
their recliners" when it came to actually providing the so-called "more
technical discussions" they seemingly wanted to hear.
The best e-mail was the guy who said he "Wasn't technical himself, but
wanted to listen to more technical discussions." I about fell out of
the chair laughing at that one! Being in a leadership role, I couldn't
really send back what I was REALLY thinking... "Yeah, good luck on that
one, buddy!"
In the case of IRLP, the solution was simple. Everyone has the commands
to turn it off... so we told 'em if they were bored with the
conversation, to switch it off, go to another Reflector, or sit in
silence... the rest of us would also do as we pleased.
With D-STAR, I'm not sure a majority of Gateway operators are offering
up the linking/unlinking commands to the "general" local repeater
population, are they? I am still trying to decide how to handle that
here... the flakiness of the data versus the voice constantly has dplus
whining at me that I've already unlinked it or whatever, when I control
it mobile... because the system missed the new UR field of CQCQCQ I set
in the rig after sending the link/unlink command. I'm not sure this
method of control is ready for "prime time" for all users, yet.
So back to the "content" issue at hand... we have had both EchoLink and
IRLP Reflectors "dedicated" to technical discussions on and off for
years now, and no significant technical discussions ever take place on
those. There's no great "all tech, all the time" Ham Radio frequency or
virtual channel on any linking mode that I know of.
So... in reality...
Your users are simply saying they want to "change the channel" or "spin
the VFO" because they're tired of the people who *do* talk.
Nothing wrong with that, but it won't lead to any more "technical
discussions" to define a place for those to happen... it takes
participants and active people to make that happen.
> Maybe we use 1-B or 1-A? Is anyone else interested? It would be so
> cool to have several cities "hooked up" with more Amateur Radio-
> related content.
Interested, but curious how you're going to "force" people to "talk
tech". Anyone with any background can bumble into a linked system and
start talking... that's how Reflectors work, of course...
I don't believe from seven or eight years of running an IRLP Reflector
with ten sub-channels, that it will ever happen. And even techies might
lapse into talking about the weather, or something personal once in a while.
Or as an engineer friend of mine taught me years ago...
"You can't fix human behavior with technology."
> By the way... we are having some coverage issued with our "B" module,
> so moving it there or telling people to just make their calls on "B"
> is not really an option right now.
Maybe you need more people allowed to turn it on and off there locally,
so there's always someone around who can kill it when the complaints start?
> How do any of you feel about this?
I love the idea in principal, I find it never works in practice.
The only way to make a channel "friendly to all topics" is to really
find people to sit and monitor and make sure it happens... by
interrupting and changing the topic.
As a repeater club President, I've stopped taking complaints about
content. They always want ME to do something about what someone ELSE is
saying/doing, when they have a mic of their own and won't speak up.
That's passive-aggressive behavior at it's finest, and I no longer play.
unless people are breaking club rules, like making sexual innuendos on
a regular basis, bad-mouthing all of ham radio, things like that... we
get involved at that point, of course.
(We did have a couple of operators who simply wouldn't keep topics clean
enough and who also were constantly berating and belittling members of
the organization -- that resulted in a "stay off the repeaters" letter.
But that kind of anti-social behavior isn't what you're talking about.)
I feel for you if your users are complaining. But the only thing that
"fixes" it long-term really is them participating. If they don't,
they'll never hear conversations they want to hear. Tell 'em as soon as
they fire up the PTT and talk... the topic changes!
Nate WY0X
