From: leadfoot@bigbootay.sw.stratus.com (Mark Curtis)
Newsgroups: rec.radio.amateur.misc
Subject: Re: Closed repeaters
Date: 5 Jan 1993 00:45:43 GMT
Organization: Stratus Computer Inc, Marlboro MA
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: bigbootay.sw.stratus.com

In article <8319@lib.tmc.edu>, jmaynard@oac.hsc.uth.tmc.edu (Jay Maynard) writes:
|> In article <1ia9j8INNl27@transfer.stratus.com> leadfoot@bigbootay.sw.stratus.com (Mark Curtis) writes:
|> >You want to park your 30k two-seater in one of the lanes of a public road
|> >for your own use 24 hours a day.  No one else can use that lane because you
|> >left your car parked in the middle of the street.  Maybe a few times a day
|> >you or a friend will use the car, but most of the time it just sits there.
|> >Your car takes up space and blocks the lane from use even when you aren't
|> >using it.  Kind of like the "Bob" car ads.  "Oh it's you Bob"  Great ad,
|> >but not realistic.
|> 
|> OK...but let's add some more things to make your analogy even closer: First of
|> all, the highway has hundreds of lanes.

And there are thousands of users/drivers.  If you live in any metro area
you know that demand for more lanes rises faster than they can be built.

Blocking off PUBLIC property for one group/user's PRIVATE use without
compensation to the public is wrong.  The enjoyment and use of public
property is for everyone.  You feel that just because you have spent money
on a repeater you now have total control of something you don't own, the
PUBLIC resource.  In this case a pair of frequencies in a ham band.  To
what government agency did you pay your yearly usage fee to?

Let me put it to you this way.  In your neighborhood there is a public park.
You like the park, but you feel that you and few friends would enjoy the
park more if you added a BBQ grill.  So you use your own money to add a
BBQ grill and enjoy it very much.  Now a new family moves in and starts
using the park.  You don't know, care, or like them so you tell them they
can't use your grill.  The problem is your grill is built on public land,
not private land.  If you don't want them to use it while you aren't there
the only thing you can do is take it with you when you leave.  You can't
rope off the area around the grill and claim it as your's, you don't own
the land the public does.

Maybe you could strike a bargin with the city.  You pay $X a year, which
the city uses to help maintain the park, in exchange for exclusive use
of the area around your grill.  Kind of like FM/AM/TV broadcasters,
cell phone, and other private interests pay.  They too are using a public
resource for private usage, so they pay a usage fee to offset the public's
loss.

|> Second, the lane Jim's Porsche is in
|> is one of the most heavily traveled lanes on the highway.

All the more reason not to park your car in the lane blocking it.  I don't
care how many lanes there are, when they're all needed people have to
share.  When there are unused lanes available then it isn't a problem,
but when demand is high the rules have to change.  No more private use
of public property.

|> Third, there are
|> spots on the highway where, if you cross them at exactly 88 miles an hour,
|> you're teleported somewhere you're thinking of, but if your speed is off, you
|> wind up in weird worlds you can never get out of.

You added a hazard to public hiway?  As long as we're at it lets add a
set of lights and traps for drag racing. :-)

I belong to a private group who four times a year clean up two miles of
interstate hiway.  Does this mean we get to dictate how and by whom the
land is used?  No, just because we put time, effort, and money into
improving that land doesn't make it our's to control.  It is still 
public property.

Our group is a hobby and we do what we do for fun and the publics good,
not to get some kind of private club grounds.  Ham radio is the same way.
It is a hobby and things are done for fun and public good.  If you are doing
things to public propery for other reasons your not in ham radio anymore.

|> Fourth, as the highway winds
|> through Texas, there are others on it who Jim shares the lane with peacefully
|> and cooperatively.

And others who have just as much right to be there who aren't welcome.

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 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.