From: jmaynard@oac.hsc.uth.tmc.edu (Jay Maynard)
Newsgroups: rec.radio.amateur.policy
Subject: Re: Closed repeaters
Date: 6 Jan 1993 19:05:34 GMT
Organization: UT Health Science Center Houston

In article <1id4laINNqlq@transfer.stratus.com> leadfoot@bigbootay.sw.stratus.com (Mark Curtis) writes:
>Because YOU'RE wasting everyone else's time, and access just so that you
>don't have to be bothered to do what everyone else does, share the road.
>You don't want to be bothered with the problems of sharing so you squat
>down and claim that lane is your private lane.  You don't own the lane,
>it's public property built and paid for with public tax money.  All you
>own is the car.  Your 30k wheels will not impress me, the cops, or the
>tow truck driver.

I (generic repeater trustee) followed all the procedures in place to get a
frequency pair to put my repeater on. I agreed to use a particular fixed
frequency, to follow limits on height and effective radiated power, and to
keep out of everyone else's way. Once upon a time, that was good enough. Now
you're telling me that it isn't.

Do you like having the rules of the game changed on you midway through the
third quarter? Why are you doing it to repeater trustees?

>Hello McFly!  Knock Knock, anyone home in there.  Thats what they make
>curb parking spaces for.  How dim can you be?

The analogy only stretches so far before it snaps... In this case, a curb
parking space is useless: the repeater is only useful if it is on a fixed
frequency, else you can't find it. It's going to sit there in the lane, like
it or not.

>Tough!  Thats life in the real world.  This is ham radio not a private
>common carrier.  Sharing, interference, and waiting are all part of
>ham radio.  You're using the wrong radio service if you think you own
>any frequency.  Get a business frequency license if you want a frequency
>all to yourself, in the ham radio service you have to share.

Life in your ideal communistic real world where everyone is supposed to be
working for the good of all, maybe. Why should you want to use the frequency
if you're not interested in using my repeater? I've never heard an answer to
that one...

>|> [BBQ grill analogy posted for the second time deleted]
>Deleted because you can't come up with anything to counter it.

No, deleted because I was about to shoot it down:

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

Like that.

>You don't have to move it, just turn it off when you're done talking and
>quit crying about having to share.  Everyone has to share the frequencies
>in ham radio.

Right...and if I turn it off, and someone else turns on an open repeater that
doesn't quiet down until 3 AM, does that mean that I can now only use my
repeater in the wee hours of the morning? NOT!

>The repeater coordinator didn't own the frequencies either.  He didn't
>have to right to "give it to you" in the first place.  Good thing he
>wasn't selling land he didn't own, the courts love people who do that.

The coordinator's end of the coordination agreement was that he wouldn't
coordinate other interfering repeaters on my channel without my consent.
He's upholding that agreement.

>|> 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?
>Get a business license if you can't handle sharing.  Didn't your parents
>teach you anything about getting along in the real world?  Sharing is
>like saying please, it gets you a long ways for very little.

How about answering my question? You're compelling me to share with someone
who's against the way I run my box, and he can effectively force me off the
air. That's sharing? That's theft!

>No they don't.  The coordinator doesn't doesn't have the right to give
>them to anyone.  He doesn't own them either.  He is just a self
>appointed person who tries to keep the various repeaters out of each
>others hair.  Something cooked up by the repeater owners to serve them-
>selves.  You may have volunteered to go along with it, but I didn't.
>Only the FCC can assign frequencies to stations, something they
>refuse to do in the ham radio service.  Sharing is part of the deal.

Not in Texas. The coordinators are selected by an organization open to the
entire ham community. If hams in Texas don't like the way it's being done,
they can vote the bastards out.

If the FCC refuses to assign frequencies in the ham service, then why do they
recognize coordinators at all?

>144/220/450 are all filled here.  1280 is doing real well too!  Scanning
>around on 450 is like looking for water in the desert.  There may be a
>little chatter here and there, but most of the repeaters are dead quiet.

Tough. They got there first, way back when they were told to put there closed
boxes on 440 in the first place. They did what they were told. Now you want to
take it all away from them.
-- 
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_