Repeater Guide Lines

The following guidelines are to be followed by hams who wish to use W6MOW repeater.

1) Operate within the guidelines prescribed in FCC part 97 at all times.
http://www.arrl.org/FandES/field/regulations/news/part97/

2) Please yield for Emergency and priority traffic. Give ALL important traffic immediate .right of way..

3) Wait for the courtesy tone (beep) before transmitting. This allows other hams to squeeze in (someone may have an emergency).

4) I ask that you identify your station when initiating or joining a conversation, as well as at the end and every 10 minutes during prolonged contacts. Use the repeater ID to prompt you if you have a hard time remembering.

5) Identify yourself before you send any DTMF commands to the repeater. Unidentified activity will be treated as malicious interference.

6) Use "Break" if you have priority or emergency traffic. Simply announce your call sign if you wish to join an on-going conversation.

7) Don't break into a conversation unless you have something to add. Interrupting is no more polite on the air than it is in person.

8) Don't break into a conversation for a signal report. If a conversation is in progress, be courteous and wait until it concludes to ask for your report.

9) When you first turn your radio on, or change frequency, listen for a while (maybe 30 seconds) to make sure that there is not a conversation or call in progress on the frequency.

10) Use simplex whenever possible. If you can complete your conversation on a direct frequency, there is no need to tie up the repeater and prevent others from using it.

11) Keep transmissions short and thoughtful. Your "monologue" may prevent someone with an emergency from using the repeater.

12) Be considerate and limit conversations to 20 minutes or so. The repeater is a shared resource for many hams to use. Simply hesitating or asking if anyone else would like to use the repeater is not the same as clearing the frequency.

13) During the commuter rush hours, base stations should defer a priority to mobile stations wishing to use the repeater. Regardless of whether operating from a mobile or base station, transmissions should be kept brief so that mobile stations reaching their destinations are able to sign off without having to wait for an extra long winded transmission to end.

14) Be sure your radio is in good working order. Excessive microphone gain, distortion or high background noise make it difficult to hear and understand you.

15) If you are in an area of marginal repeater coverage or are using a hand-held with a rubber duck antenna, ask for a signal report to be sure your transmissions are legible. Once is usually enough, no need to walk around and ask "Can you hear me now?".

16) Use plain English.

17) Please don't "kerchunk" the repeater (key up without identifying yourself) just to see if it is working.

18) If you hear a "jammer", ignore him. Don't even acknowledge him in any way. If the jammer has no audience he won't have any fun and will soon go away.

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