I never understood why "monitoring" or "listening" was acceptable over repeaters, but "CQ" supposedly wasn't. Isn't it naturally to be assumed that if you hit a repeater and announce your call sign, that you are monitoring or listening to the repeater? Announcing that you are "listening" is about equally inane to transmitting your callsign over the air and then announcing "for ID". CQ means you are actively seeking someone to talk to. Maybe you are transmitting and listening to the repeater, but the repeater is re-transmitting your signal far and wide, just the same as when you transmit on HF.
I do understand your point, but Roger Beeps are so annoying. When I hear people using them I usually turn down the volume or change repeaters.
I have found no need to call CQ on a repeater. I just drop my call without any additional info, not "Listening", "Monitoring"??? , or "Anything." Oh, wait... I remember a few times dropping my callsign and saying, "Anybody around?" This has worked in the past with local repeaters when I'm driving through but when at home and going for DX situations, I only drop my callsign. In the process of just dropping my callsign, I find that there are plenty of people who come back to me, mostly by those who wonder who I am and why I dropped my callsign on the repeater. Usually I needed road directions, when mobile, but sometimes I just said where I was located and asked where the repeater was located. One incident I remember well: While living in Central TX (Killeen), I had stacked 11-element beams at 50-ft and an FM-27B feeding a 120W amp (when needed...) and when I heard some real 2M DX roll in from LA, GA and FL, I'd respond. I heard late at night one repeater ID, it was about 2AM. After hearing the ID, I dropped my callsign on it. A guy came back to me and he was in Orlando, FL. We chatted a few minutes and suddenly we heard a gravelly voice say, "This repeater is not for DX." No callsign, either. Great show of legality. Anyway, the guy I was talking to said, "Go back to sleep, Old Man. I'll tell you about it in the morning." We then continued the QSO for a few minutes and signed off. Some people have forgotten the LORE of Ham Radio which includes doing something (legal) which is unusual and unexpected results come our way. Such experimentation is a heavy part of Ham Radio. Remember, this is not Business/Professional or Aeronautical/Marine Radio Service. It's Ham Radio and experimentation is at its core. How can we forget this?
I have concluded that a lot of Oldtimers think that if you call CQ on a repeater, you must be some kind of newbie to Ham Radio. They assume that "everyone knows" you don't do this — on a repeater. They sometimes think that it's their repeater, they put it up and fund the expenses and what they say is law on that repeater. In one case, the local group where I lived called itself an "Association" and demanded that any user had to pay to use the repeater. I asked the FCC in Dallas and they confirmed that this was pecuniary... So, the "Association" started turning off the computer when anyone local used it and was not a paying member of the "Association." A 2-way commercial radio shop owner put up the repeater and thought that no one should be allowed to use it unless he/she was a paying member. This was years ago, though. Since then, there were other repeaters put up in the area so the "Association" was not the only game in town. I assume that they still have it there and the old gang still hang out on it. (The "dues" were $15 per year and I gave the treasurer $10 who came to "collect" since that was what I had in my pocket at the time. I told him that I'd give more if they needed it. He gave me the money back and THEN the repeater was turned off when my callsign was given. That was when I went to the FCC.) Where has the spirit of Ham Radio gone???
Along with digitalization came tone-activated repeater squelch. "Open" repeaters are getting more and more scarce. You may listen but unless you benefited by a tone generator on transmit, that's all you can do. Standard excuse is that it eliminates "skip" where a long-range signal does not open the repeater and this is a valid excuse in some locations. However, it is no longer as it was when all you needed was a transmit and receive crystal — unless your game is 52 or 94-Simplex. 52-Simplex is the minimum mobile rig for me at this point. Some monitor this frequency for those who are on the road and have some kind of emergency.
When I lived in Houston back in the late 1970s I got on a local 2m repeater and started a conversation with another ham about modifying a 75m transmitter. After a few exchanges, someone broke in and informed us "we don't do that technical talk here on this repeater" and shut it down.
When you say "Listening" it is short for "Listening for a response from someone/anyone." "Listening" does not seem inappropriate to me but when someone says: "Monitoring" — the call does does not obviously mean that the caller is expecting anyone to reply. Therefore, the "Monitoring" station is still in monitoring mode, supposedly, and the intent of the calling station is not obvious.
I know this was technically illegal, but by now I should be covered by the statute of limitations... Back in the late 1970s, a 75m SSB group started up with each station using roger beeps. Their voice signals were marginal and from listening to their conversations they were obviously newcomers from another "service", but the beeps were much stronger than their voices and stuck out like a sore thumb, and quite irritating to those in adjacent-frequency QSOs in the then-congested phone band. I was initially puzzled by those random "dits", but after listening for a while figured out what happening and decided to get my revenge; I fired up my CW rig, and randomly transmitted occasional dits on the same frequency where their beeps occurred. They appeared disoriented and confused at first, until they finally figured out what was going on. A couple of the ops were angry, but I suppose the whole group quickly decided that roger beeps were not appreciated in the HF phone band; they continued their nightly get-together on the same frequency after that night, but the "beeps" were turned off.
I called CQ on 146.520 and had another ham tell me you dont do that on 146.520 it is all about point of view I think.
This is simply my personal opinion based on what I have personally observed. It may be a local phenomenon so I'm not sure this is the case across the entire country. Two meter repeater activity in this area has been slowly declining since the late 1990s and I believe there are multiple reasons for this and I seriously doubt the trend is going to reverse course. Honestly, the quality of the conversations of local two meter traffic has diminished significantly in the past couple of decades. The veteran operators who enjoyed constructive technical QSOs have either passed away or lost interest due to having no one with whom they can relate. They might have stayed around if the non-technical conversations were intellectually stimulating. Another thing I've noticed is that the statistics we are given from ARRL would lead us to believe that amateur radio is alive and well with droves of new licensees appearing weekly. I occasionally check the local database and note the new calls. Oddly enough, they never seem to make their way to the air or of they do, they get bored with the limitations of their two meter HT. Which brings us to the next reason we're hearing less traffic. These new hams are less willing to spend money on the hobby. We all know you can spend as much or as little as you want and like most things, you get out of it what you put into it. But if we're to be totally honest with ourselves (and the new hams), we will have to admit that amateur radio is not a cheap hobby. To get even a fair amount of enjoyment out if it, you're going to have to drop some cash. In addition to all of this, we live in a world that is much different than it was two decades ago. Amateur radio itself is losing popularity. It has always been for an exclusive group of individuals and despite ARRL's attempt to make it an all-inclusive hobby, we're still unable to make it appealing to today's generation.
I hear CQ being called often on the two meter calling frequency and I always try to answer up. I'm not sure why you were told not to do that but I don't think it violates any written or unwritten protocols.
I too have been on a long ham radio hiatus. Picking up the HTs and Mobile antenna again I immediately found minimal activity even on the number of linked wide-area-coverage repeater systems in the Philadelphia metropolitan area. When I was active and belonged to two clubs (one general and service club, one heavy-duty contest club) I always used the repeater systems to stay in touch with the members. Everybody knew everybody. If we weren't talking about upcoming club events, or station upgrades, or antenna systems and construction or computerized logging networks, or the upcoming Field Day plans, I don't know what we would have talked about. NO ONE I knew thought of VHF/UHF FM as a primary operating mode. It was a useful tool for point to point communication, public service, and coordinating events as a volunteer. I did hear two guys talking last night, and the subject - I kid you not - was "so what did you have for dinner". You can only get so much out of "a chicken pot pie... and a Klondike bar". Honest- you can't make this stuff up. I did connect with a member of one of my old clubs, who knew some of the fellas I knew as a member- and will probably go totheir hamfest in a couple of weeks. Maybe even join again. Communication is still communication. Some people can do it face to face. And some can't. The radio makes it a bit sillier still. Why would I want to jabber about a "personal"? It's quite simple to tell you my name. "My name is Ron." (Shorter too.) I don't need phonetics unless there are "sound alike" letters in my call or audible interference on the frequency. And standard phonetics HELP in those scenarios. Stupid things like "name's Bill - Boy I Love Liquor..." are MORE confusing, not less, especialy to an Op whose first language is NOT English. Just silly on FM and useless on HF. But I digress. I could go on forever about the aspects of the hobby that have deteriorated - but most of life has gone the same route. However there are still a good bunch of guys in clubs , only too willing to help. And the people part of ham radio has always been the most enjoyable for me. It ain't like the old days when my HF mobile rig (see photo above) drew a lot of attention.
