UHF/VHF repeater activity

[Matt285]

I don't use UHF/VHF very often, but when I do I notice the activity is way down from what it use to be. Yes I do no that it has declined over the years, but it seems unusually low these days. Are people using some type of digital platform for repeaters? I live near a fairly large city that always had lots of activity in years before.

[Stretchyman]

DMR, Yeasu (con)Fusion and D-star are the main ones. There are others too.

DMR is super cheap but takes some configuring. I like Fusion but YMMV.

Regards.

Stretchy.

[Matt285]

Im guessing thats what most are using. Back when I was very active mobile, Echolink was the new big thing.

[Stretchyman]

A touch passé these days!

[Matt285]

Yes. For sure. I remember punching in that first node number in and bringing up a repeater out of the country. It was ground breaking at the time! I wonder if anyone still monitors the FM simplex frequency 146.520? That was always fun. There used to be two guys about 90 miles South from me that ran Cushcraft 26B's vertcal. They made up for my small antenna with all that gain. It always seemed like a bit of a waste to have so much metal in the air for FM, but to each their own.

[ThaDood]

Yeah, I'll still keep my 2M rig on National Simplex, 146.520MHz, as well as 146.580MHz as a secondary where I am. On the repeaters, the C4FM Fusion seems to be the rage, but when you view and listen to the calls of the folks using that mode, more than 1/2 of them are not from here, since the Fusion repeaters are constantly linked. I'll do 10M FM repeaters as well, especially the Dallas, TX one on 29.660-/R, when propagation permits. It's not PL toned.

[pinto vortando]

Usually somebody listening on 146.52 around the metro region here.
Give a long enough call so that if they are scanning a bunch of repeaters
along with .52 you will be heard.

[Josh]

Lotsa activity on rptrs and smplx here, sadly more digital lately. wich makes me reach for the lockout button.

[Matt285]

Yeah. A guy I work with has a Tech Lic and we talk from time to time on 2m/440. It's like a ghost town. I always try to remember to pause and welcome other stations to join the QSO and maybe .5 times out of 10 someone will. I'm sure there are still people monitoring though.

[Josh]

To be sure, someone's listening out there. Far more scanners tuned to HAM repeaters than HAM rigs. Hmmm, well mebbe not so many more these days as scanning has become even more of a niche or fetish than HAM.