From: jmaynard@oac.hsc.uth.tmc.edu (Jay Maynard)
Newsgroups: rec.radio.amateur.misc,rec.radio.amateur.policy
Subject: Re: Closed repeaters
Date: 5 Jan 1993 21:14:12 GMT
Followup-To: rec.radio.amateur.policy
Organization: UT Health Science Center Houston

[Followups to .policy...]

In article <1icr4sINNl08@transfer.stratus.com> leadfoot@bigbootay.sw.stratus.com (Mark Curtis) writes:
>Except he isn't the only person parking in the lanes.  Hundreds of others
>have the same idea.  Nobody has a problem with them using the road to drive
>on, it's using it for a private parking lot when they aren't that we have
>a problem with.

So use the next road over that has plenty of open lanes, and goes the same
places.

>You can't be that thick skulled, you must be playing dense to avoid my point.
>No one is saying he should be forced to play taxi driver.  Just don't park
>the damn thing in the middle of the road when you aren't using it.  Let
>someone else use the lane while you aren't.  I realize not having to bother
>with other people is real handy, but it doesn't work that way.

Who says he's not using it just because it isn't moving? He could be waiting
for a passenger he's made an appointment to go to dinner with.

>You can spend all the money you want, but it isn't going to change the
>fact that you are using public property.

So? The repeater is useless without a fixed frequency on which to find it, and
to force him to share the frequency without his consent hinders his ability to
use his property.

[BBQ grill analogy posted for the second time deleted]
>I'm not saying you have to let them use your grill/repeater, just don't
>try to lay claim to public property by building something on it.  If you
>don't want to share your stuff (take it home/shut it off) when you are
>done (using the park for the day/talking).  That way someone else, who
>has equal an equal right to use the park, can get the full use of the 
>park that you enjoyed.  Claiming exclusive rights to part of the park
>wrongly deprives them of its full use.  It isn't your's to claim.

A barbecue grill doesn't lose its utility if you pick it up and move it. A
repeater does.

Besides, the situation is more like the city telling you that you can build
that grill there, and keep others from using it, and then telling you after
you've built a $10K grill complete with smokers, rotisseries, and gold-plated
tongs that now you have to let everyone use it. Is that fair?

>I'm not saying don't put up a repeater.  Just don't get this "I own this
>pair stay the hell off it" attitude.  You don't own anything except your
>repeater hardware and attitude.  If someone you don't like starts using
>the machine turn it off.  Getting on with an "I own this freq" attitude is
>wrong and silly.  Just turn your repeater off, that is the only thing you
>do own and control.

Getting on with an "I can transmit anywhere I damned well please, and you
can't stop me" attitude is wrong and silly.

If I were to follow your words, then someone who doesn't like me or my
repeater can force me to keep it off the air, thus depriving me of the use of
it. Is that fair?

Under the rules by which a LOT of repeaters were coordinated, they do in fact
own that frequency. The simple fact of the matter is that you will not be able
to change that easily or cheaply, and you may well not be aboe to change it at
all. Want to put up a repeater? Try 220, or 900, or 1200; there's plenty of
spectrum out there just begging to be used.
-- 
Jay Maynard, EMT-P, K5ZC, PP-ASEL | Never ascribe to malice that which can
jmaynard@oac.hsc.uth.tmc.edu      | adequately be explained by stupidity.
      "Science is all in the public domain, and allows few secrets."
              -- Tom Clancy, _The Sum of All Fears_