Do you want to see the national net come back, and are you willing to be NCO?

[wrcu527]

The title says it all. I was net control for the old national net when it was new and when it got very large and unwieldy.

What are your thoughts and would you run it?

wrcu527 Darren in Tucson.

73

[gortex2]

Nope. Sorry Im not a fan of nets. They should be on Ham radio in my opinion. A national net just ties up repeaters when no one is listening to them.

[mbrun]

Big national internet-enabled net for GMRS, No. Organically formed local net with a clear local mission, perhaps.


Michael
WRHS965
KE8PLM

[WROZ250]

8 hours ago, gortex2 said:

Nope. Sorry Im not a fan of nets. They should be on Ham radio in my opinion. A national net just ties up repeaters when no one is listening to them.

Nets are not a 'Ham Radio' thing, but are admittedly common in that hobby.  Many (non ham radio) disaster agencies operate nets on a regular schedule.

That said, national nets, especially those that depend on links (i.e. internet) tend to get unruly when participation is large, not to mention multiple time zone issues.  The links can (and frequently do) drop, however long or short in duration, leaving many participants in the affected area out of the conversation.  Occasionally the net control falls into that issue as well.

As @gortex2 suggested, and this is quite true for GMRS being analog FM, national nets tie up a lot of repeaters.  At least with digital technologies such as, for example, DMR, nets can be national in nature (above negatives not withstanding) and not tie up communications for others.

There are check-in nets and there are 'rag-chew' nets (which can be fun with or without a discussion topic), and many others types. 

Having said all that, some nets do serve a very good purpose. However, I have to agree with @mbrun regarding a national net and opt for more 'localized' nets with a clear purpose.

Personally, I'm not a fan of (most) nets, but neither am I against them ('to each their own').

Just my personal opinions...

 

[JeepCrawler98]

wrcu527

[gortex2]

In 20+ years of GMRS we never had chatter of nets. It wasn't until the ham lite crown came over to GMRS. Remember GMRS used to be a service for a family and was never used in the ways it is now. Its not a bad thing just different than why I got into GMRS and many did in the early years. Been in public safety for 20+ years and have never heard a net on any public safety system either. It may happen but in the NE you wont hear it unless you scan the ham bands. 

I guess I look at the linking thing as a change also to GMRS thats not always good. HAM did alot of this and I know of repeaters that are now usesless as all you hear is ragchewing all day from half way across the US. Kinda killed some repeaters for local use. 

[Lagutcho]

yes, would love to see national net come back

[W4ATN]

As most here, I'm not a fan of a huge national net tying up analog repeaters. If we could do digital (DMR or P-25) that would be different. I am good with local nets. I'd like to see more local nets where a repeater could be optional and not connected after the net. I'm trying to build a local net of 4 repeaters for healthcare emergency use connected when needed via IP and then only the repeaters really needed. Technology is there but will cost. 

 

[DONE]

I don't have issue with a national net once a month to give guys a chance to chat with others outside their normal operating area or system.  But there are some concerns I would have with control operators and backup control operators being on the same node or even the same repeater if the links bounced.  A net is of course run by the CO. If all of a sudden there was no CO, the net work fall apart, and if that happened a couple of times the net would just fall apart.  I would advise that there be a CO for each major node at minimum when the nodes are tied and the net starts so someone can keep things going while the links reset or to run the net on their node so things don't spiral out of control.  Of course those CO's would need enhanced control ability to drop individual repeaters off ANY node that became an issue during net operations. 

 

Beyond that, there should be a preplanned set of topics to discuss and all the normal net stuff, again so that there is a reason to join the net to begin with.

That of course is a problem with HAM nets.  Lack of compelling topics to keep people engaged.  Once people stop showing up, there is little use of having a net.

 

 

[DONE]

I should have mentioned that I would be willing to act as NCO once I get stuff back up and running at the tower.   And I may want to talk to someone about running a separate node that would be directly connected to my dispatch console and only used for CO duties. 

 

[WRTS418]

I would like to see some sort of net, I travel a lot away from my wife between Virginia and Florida, it would give us a good way to keep checking in with each other