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Today I heard a GMRS repeater owner shouting at the imaginary. It would be funny except for the obvious impact he’s having across many thousands of square miles. Mild tropospheric ducting is in effect. Weak signals from a good portion of the Eastern United States are being heard at my home as I am sure are everywhere around DelMarVa. I can hear THREE systems ID’ing on the frequency in question and ID’s on other channels from Virginia, D.C., Delaware, New York, and Pennsylvania.
Someone somewhere is testing on the same repeater frequency pair used by the repeater owner in Virginia. The person testing is also apparently on the same CTCSS or DCS tone. This is one reason why GMRS licensees that own repeaters should coordinate tones!
Instead of realizing this and just ignoring it or turning his own rarely used repeater off during the tropo event he spends tens of minutes shouting at each and every burst of static announcing the time and date, you’ll never use this repeater, this is my repeater, this is private property go away, ad nauseum. I imagine the greater Eastern US is also listening to him rant.
Other than the obvious silliness of the entire episode from a technical perspective some other points come to mind:
1. GMRS licensees are required to control their repeaters. The other user is bringing up more than one system. The user doing the testing should WAIT and test another day if he detects he is bringing up multiple repeaters. Both repeaters should coordinate tones. The affected Virginia system should shut down.
2. Since the Virginia repeater is rarely used why shouldn’t it be shared and new users encouraged. My repeater in Calvert County, MD is available to any GMRS licensee that wants to use it as long as the GMRS rules are followed. We are going to lose repeaters if don’t stop being so ridiculously territorial and/or restricting allowed users to “members” of an elite service group or club.
3. Based on my personal experience since 1995 the interference could be INPUT interference from commercial pirates or foreign shipping. The latter being more a possibility in DelMarVa. Listen on the input to an affected repeater.
4. GMRS licensees do not own repeater pairs. Our repeater pairs are NOT coordinated so anyone can build a repeater anywhere. We are required by the rules to share and prevent mutual interference. Shouting at ghosts during tropo is interference. Well after the first time anyway.
5. I wish everyone that owned a repeater had a listed telephone number.
6. There is also a repeater on the same channel with very loud INTERMOD. The owner needs to correct that condition.
Shouting at a mystery user in the static makes you appear comical and doing it during tropo rude. We are NOT going to popularize our service and keep it by shouting anyone down. Even ghosts.
