I agree with this - example being that there's a repeater that's fairly distant to me (easily managable from the house, but quite difficult from a car until I'm about 10 miles closer to it than I am at home). There's also 2 repeaters that are really distant and can vary depending on conditions.
All 3 of these repeaters operate as mentioned here - If I key up and let go, there's a tiny bit of carrier as I unkey. If the carrier's too badly broken, I don't give my call, as it wouldn't make it in anyway and would just be plain annoying. One of these repeaters needs a fairly long over before it actually opens fully and IDs itself. New users (including myself at one point) find this annoying, thinking that it's not working. I still forget occasionally to length my call by giving it in phonetics, and have to re-do it to make it long enough to open the repeater. The local UHF repeater opens fully at any 1750Hz tone or CTCSS on the input, which means someone kerchunking it, or not making it in fully, results in 10-15 seconds silent carrier and the full ID every time (It's nearly 2KHz off frequency too, but that's just it's age!). By comparison, the last repeater round here to not have CTCSS is a complete pig to open - deliberate or otherwise - and this results in virtually zero use. Geert Jan de Groot wrote: > > > We have some on our repeater frequency, that just like to kerchunk > > the repeater to hear it come back or ID. Is there any way we can > > eliminate this annoying situation? I suspect that we may have > > an unlicensed individual with a 2meter radio. > > This actually isn't technology, it's psychology. > Consider this: > > A guy, either licensed or unlicensed, got himself a radio but doesn't > have lots of reasons to get active, either because he does't know > the crowd, is new, perhaps not licensed (yet!) or just because he > wants to test access to the repeater. You and I, each with more than > 20 years of experience, know what to expect; for someone new, > this is cause of concern and something to explore. > > Asking for a report may be difficult - perhaps because he doesn't know > the group of people that all seem to know eachother for years, > perhaps he looks up to the user community, perhaps the license thing > sits in the way. > > The easiest way to get what he wants, is just to kerchunk the repeater. > So that's what he does. > > There are 4 things to do: > 1. Make the kerchunk event as non-disruptive as possible. > Make sure the repeater's response is there, but as non-intrusive > as possible. My machines just have a 500 ms hangtime; > if people kerchunk, they just hear the plop when they unkey, > know that the repeater still works, and be done with it. > Certainly, no roger beeps, bloops, ID's or significant hangtime. > Just enough response to allow for testing and be done with it. > (Dutch regulations allow me to periodically ID; hence, I don't > need to make this dependent on user activity and, as you'd guessed, > the ID thing is completely independent of activity, be it kerchunkers > or regular users). > 2. Believe it or not, make kerchunking easy. One of the machines I manage, > used to have a "speech detector". Kerchunkers, instead of quietly > keying the microphone, were supposed to ID. > They were supposed to, but what happened was that people would whistle, > rub the grill of the microphone or do something else to circumvent > the "speech detector". When the machine got renovated, I removed this > misfeature, allowing just plain carrier, and the user community > picked it up quickly, supposedly because the other machines work > like this. > Again: kerchunking is going to happen. Make it easy, minimize it's impact, > and make it a non-event and be done with it. > 3. Don't talk about abuse issues. Never, ever, mention the kerchunker. > This, and the rationale behind it, should be known to members of > this group; check the abuse files for the reasons behind it. > 4. Create a friendly, inviting environment where newcomers feel themselves > welcome. With luck, the kerchunker(s) will join the community > and become a valuable addition to your user group. > I know this has happened several times on my machines, and I do consider > this a feature. > > 73, > > Geert Jan PE1HZG > janitor, PI3EHV, PI2EHV, PI6EHN, PI8EHV > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > > No virus found in this incoming message. > Checked by AVG - www.avg.com > Version: 8.0.237 / Virus Database: 270.11.15/2003 - Release Date: 03/15/09 > 14:07:00 > >
