David Van Horn wrote:

>>These efforts are stymied by lack of adequate communications. You
>>can't send your group out there until you have a way of contacting
>>them at any time, and vice versa. The ARRL is trying to send in the
>>hams, but that's yet another organization that has to get
>>authorization.
>>
>>
>>Isnt that what RACES is setup to do....???
>>    
>>
>
>Around here, races has nets for an hour or two where only two people
>check in. They sit silent mostly, once they are done "checking in" all
>their buddies.  They do manage to yell at you if you thought the
>repeater was unused, and you started to make a Qso. 
>  
>
RACES is all but dead.  It is not possible to get a new RACES license in
the U.S. and hasn't been possible for some time.  If one is accidentally
allowed to expire, it's gone forever.

ARES is the newer, generally better, replacement.. if that's the right
word.  I'm sure the RACES guys don't want to be "replaced".  Sigh...

Dave's comments really lead to a different problem... the average age of
Amateur Radio operators is slowly going up.  It leads to some
interesting behaviours seen no where else... when you get large groups
of elderly men together (Amateur Radio has always struggled in having
females active also), they can be a bit... grumpy?

I recently was appointed President of a local large ham radio club. 
Keeping all the various personalities happy can be interesting... of
course my general response to personality complaints is that people need
to be responsible for their own happiness... I'm not going to play
"repeater cop" beyond keeping the repeaters legal and topics reasonable
for an organization with a lot of families and kids that could be listening.

There's a group of younger, very active hams bouncing around town on
various repeater frequencies here (they even feel they've been "kicked
off" some repeater systems) in Denver, who really aren't harming
anything, but their topics of conversation and the rapid-fire way they
use their radios really annoys the hell out of the older hams. 

I've been working with them a bit on-the-air to say, "Hey you're welcome
on our club's systems, but please remember there are KIDS listening...
topics that allude to sexual topics can be very offensive to some of our
members, especially those with families who might turn on a radio late
and night and hear your conversations.  Keep it a family repeater."

But it's interesting to see the differences in what's "acceptable"
between the groups (while trying to remain non-judgemental).  These guys
have websites, use IM while they're talking on the radio, and generally
have better "modern" technical skills than their older counterparts...
but... they say and believe very silly things about how RF and radios
work! 

Right now I try to bridge the gap (I'm a 30-something) between the
groups... convince the younger guys to settle down a bit... convince the
elder hams to get on that repeater and elmer the new guys a bit... it's
kinda fun.

And of course the best way to have good neighbors on the air (when it
comes to repeaters) is to have plenty of them up to spread everyone
out... something about fences and neighbors...?  (GRIN)

So we're at a crossroads:  http://www.w0cra.org/info/squawmtnupdate.html

My choice?  More systems, more coverage, everything with real emergency
power backup, and lots of linking capability to hook the systems
together in case of REAL emergency communications need.

Nate WY0X
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