Why is nobody on the air?

[WRTT642]

Interesting how so many are talking about how repeaters are dead and not much simplex use because modern tech such as cell phones has become the norm.

The school I teach at has gone completely cell phone-free. Meaning the kids can not have their cell phones from the time the morning bell rings to the last bell of the day. We have issued to all students Yondr Pouches, which are little bags the students have to put their cell phones in when the morning bell rings they magnetically lock and the kids can not get them open until we put the "keys" out at the end of the day.

With that being said, I have been able to use that to recruit more kids to ham radio. I have been showing the kids all the ways that radio can be used like a cell phone, such as text messaging, sharing pictures, and emails, and just plain ol talking with each other. Most of these kids all live in the same neighborhood or close enough to do simplex. The big thing when telling the kids this is that cell phones may be banned, but the principal never said anything about ham radio lol. I know there are caveats to all of these, but generally speaking as some of you already know these things are not difficult to do. I told them that even if they are grounded from their cell phones at home they can still use their radios to communicate with their friends and even share each other's locations etc. lol. Teaching these things to the younger generation has been a big hit and the school admin is all for it and super supportive of the kids using radio tech instead of their cell phones.

Please guys, and gals, don't give up on our younger generation. These kids are smart and catch on quickly, they just need more people showing them how to properly utilize ham radio and all the benefits it has. Man, I can go on all day on this subject as I have been working hard integrating ham radio into our school. The ham club I started at the school has been a big success to my surprise and has fired me up to know that ham radio is not dead and is alive and well in our kids, as long as WE do the work to show them. Sorry, rant over lol. 

[Jaay]

How many of the students use "Decoy phones" ?  No subscriber data or sim ? Several of our students in my area stick their decoys in those bags, and keep their op devices hid and on vibrate or off, and just check them in the bathrooms.

[Jaay]

Most of the users in my area don't seem to be Talkers, but mostly lurkers. I throw out Both my calls a few times a day, and locals respond but rarely anyone new. I hear several ops in the wisconsin , Indiana area but nobody in mine.  As far as I know, there's only 4 licensed gmrs ops in my town.

[WRQI583]

11 hours ago, LeoG said:

Got home to find out the PL had been changed somehow.  So obviously she wouldn't be able to hear me.

I have had that happen several times and some times went as far as ripping everything apart and finally ending with the programming in the radio to find out it was a PL tone. 

[CentralFloridaGMRS]

16 hours ago, WRQI583 said:

What town is that? Maine may have activity, but it is not active like I am used to. I have 11 repeaters with simplex scanning in my radio and it has been since I sat down here at 630 this evening and not a peep has come out of that radio. There are many evenings that are like this. Go farther north and it is worse.

Rockland, Bangor, Portland. Many of the lobstermen use GMRS to talk home and other boats in the area.

[WRQI583]

58 minutes ago, CentralFloridaGMRS said:

Rockland, Bangor, Portland. Many of the lobstermen use GMRS to talk home and other boats in the area.

Ah yes, those areas have a big GMRS presence on the radio. Sometimes I think it is more active than Ham.

[WRTT642]

14 hours ago, Jaay said:

How many of the students use "Decoy phones" ?  No subscriber data or sim ? Several of our students in my area stick their decoys in those bags, and keep their op devices hid and on vibrate or off, and just check them in the bathrooms.

Have yet to see that happen. Not saying it has not, but I have yet to hear that from any teachers or staff. We have a whole procedure we go through in making sure kids have their cell phones in their pouch. If they don't and when they get caught (they always get caught) we send their phone to front office and parent has to come to school to pick up phone. Once that happens lets just say the kid never forgets again, that's if they get their phone back from their parents.

 

[Tip10]

How do the first responders feel about your cell phone policies?
Curious since guidelines from Homeland Security and FBI for Active Shooter situations urge calling 911 if it is safe to do so and reporting locations, or, if you cannot speak (or don’t feel it’s safe to do so) to just leave the line open.
You have effectively removed your students ability to reach out in an emergency situation.


Never engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed person.

[LeoG]

I bet the teachers don't have to give up their phones during the day.

[FlatTop]

6 minutes ago, LeoG said:

I bet the teachers don't have to give up their phones during the day.

I'd hope not...the little children don't need them. 

[LeoG]

Figured they were mostly used to cheat on tests.

[StogieVol]

I actually wish there was more general chat going on. It is usually quiet in my area but sometimes, the channels get going. I enjoy it. Just got my friend on GMRS, so my activity should become more. We also use the radios for off roading. 

[WRTT642]

3 hours ago, Tip10 said:

How do the first responders feel about your cell phone policies?
Curious since guidelines from Homeland Security and FBI for Active Shooter situations urge calling 911 if it is safe to do so and reporting locations, or, if you cannot speak (or don’t feel it’s safe to do so) to just leave the line open.
You have effectively removed your students ability to reach out in an emergency situation.


Never engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed person.

I do not feel like it is my place as an employee in my position to comment on the security protocols of our schools on a public forum. I will add a link to an article that may put some perspective on this matter.

https://www.edweek.org/technology/school-shootings-are-fueling-the-debate-over-cellphones-in-class/2022/06

Hope this helps answer some of those concerns you may have. If you have any questions or issues with the no cell phone policy at your local schools (if they have them) you have every right as a parent and a citizen to speak with either the principal of the school or the school board in your district. 

[Tip10]

I do not feel like it is my place as an employee in my position to comment on the security protocols of our schools on a public forum. I will add a link to an article that may put some perspective on this matter.
https://www.edweek.org/technology/school-shootings-are-fueling-the-debate-over-cellphones-in-class/2022/06
Hope this helps answer some of those concerns you may have. If you have any questions or issues with the no cell phone policy at your local schools (if they have them) you have every right as a parent and a citizen to speak with either the principal of the school or the school board in your district. 

I can certainly understand that. Wasn’t necessarily questioning the policy - was questioning whether it was developed in conjunction with local law enforcement. There are still districts that want no LE involvement.
Appreciate the article - hadn’t seen that one.


Never engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed person.u

[emory]

On 9/17/2024 at 9:47 PM, WRTT642 said:

Teaching these things to the younger generation has been a big hit and the school admin is all for it and super supportive of the kids using radio tech instead of their cell phones.

Please guys, and gals, don't give up on our younger generation. These kids are smart and catch on quickly, they just need more people showing them how to properly utilize ham radio and all the benefits it has. Man, I can go on all day on this subject as I have been working hard integrating ham radio into our school. The ham club I started at the school has been a big success to my surprise and has fired me up to know that ham radio is not dead and is alive and well in our kids, as long as WE do the work to show them. Sorry, rant over lol. 

My 9yo is way into radio, we did an exercise where we identified the owner of an unattended unused GMRS repeater about 51 miles away. Can't reach it with 5-9W and i've never heard anything but the semi-hourly (every 56mins more or less?) of a CW burst that we decoded together into a GMRS call that we used to lookup the owner! She was super happy to solve a mystery.

On 9/18/2024 at 2:14 AM, Jaay said:

How many of the students use "Decoy phones" ?  No subscriber data or sim ? Several of our students in my area stick their decoys in those bags, and keep their op devices hid and on vibrate or off, and just check them in the bathrooms.

Man, some of my partner's 15yo's kids are not my biggest fan because I have walked a couple of parents through restoring backups from iCloud to another device when their darling child has intentionally wiped their phone when prompted to hand it over.

On 9/18/2024 at 6:43 PM, LeoG said:

Figured they were mostly used to cheat on tests.

Bullying. I hear waaaaaay too much about bullying-at-scale via snapchat and other platforms. it's extremely alarming what parents are dealing with these days. I have not heard a lot about cheating but my two are 12 and 9, the 15yo says there's a lot of plagiarism evasion via gen AI happening in high school.

solidarity with the parents in this thread. /respect  

[Jaay]

On 9/18/2024 at 5:56 PM, LeoG said:

I bet the teachers don't have to give up their phones during the day.

IF I was a student, you'd never know I had one, due to a different tactic, not that I'd be better than other students, but I'd be more private about it.

[GreggInFL]

18 hours ago, emory said:

I have not heard a lot about cheating but my two are 12 and 9, the 15yo says there's a lot of plagiarism evasion via gen AI happening in high school.

This has been happening in colleges where the profs have learned to submit the work to AI and ask if it was generated by AI.

[Jaay]

17 hours ago, GreggInFL said:

This has been happening in colleges where the profs have learned to submit the work to AI and ask if it was generated by AI.

This is happening here in my area ,as well.  I think AI is a rabbit hole not worth going down, as it's too tempting for the wrong people to use it in the WRONG ways.

[WRQI663]

I wonder how much bullying would happen if social media made them use their real names to sign in???

 

[marcspaz]

5 hours ago, WRQI663 said:

I wonder how much bullying would happen if social media made them use their real names to sign in???

 

 

 

Gee... I wonder.  LOL

[WQAI363]

On 9/13/2024 at 5:10 PM, Skunkape said:

All I ever hear is "call sign, repeater check", or "call sign, monitoring" An open repeater with a 35 mile radius covering a population of at least 200,000. Not a peep. Nothing, nada, crickets. Why is everyone so shy? Is it the same everywhere or does your area have an active network? 

I hear the same thing here in Southeastern Pennsylvania. However, I do hear more conversations on a closed system than on open systems or even on simplex. Most of time on simplex, I'll children fooling around or chit-chatting with parents. I also hear a lot of business being conducted on GMRS simplex channels. I never really hear casual conversations on any simplex channel.

Yep, that one huge difference between Amateur Radio and the General Mobile Radio Service.

Of course, everyone's already aware of that, but there are some out there that don't really the full understanding of the differences with each two-way radio services. I have to admit, I get confused myself, even though I've been around two-way radios almost 35 years. Of course, I've only been licensed over 21 years as an Amateur Radio Licensee and GMRS Licensee over 20 years.

[GreggInFL]

I hear a couple, sometime three, hams yacking casually on GMRS weekdays between 3:00 and 5:00 pm.  One guy hits the gym at 4:00 and signs off from the parking lot.  I can tell they are hams from the conversation.

If I do a radio check off a big local repeater there will sometimes be a conversation, but it's almost always a newly-licensed GMRSer.

[Jaay]

There's guys yakking everyday on and off about a variety of topics on ch.8 north of me.  Sometimes I'll ID and join in, but I'm more of a lurker than a talker.