Just a reminder…..
Join us on IRLP node 9007 (The Hamsexy Reflector as some have been calling it) for the HAMSEXY NET tonight at 9PM eastern (6pm Pacific, 0100 zulu). All amateurs are free to check in. it’s a general chat net, all are welcome to say hello to your fellow amateurs and Hamsexy fans.
As well, K5MLK has graciously took it upon himself to set up an Echolink connection to the net. To check in via Echolink, point your scary self to K5MLK-L or Node #207801. This will connect you directly to the Hamsexy Relfector.
If you aren’t a ham or don’t have access to either IRLP or Echolink, listen to the live stream at http://irlp.net:8000/hamsexy.m3u (Thanks to Terry VE3NSV). We will, as always, also be acceptig chekins from amateurs via the Hamsexy Forums Net Check-in Thread.
Hams from across North America routinely check in, but let’s get a few check-ins from around the world! Stay up late!! Check in for the net! It’s only Midnight in London! Sometime early next week four days ago in Australia! We’d love Hamsexy fans from aroud the world check in.
Net control will be me, VE3HBD in Toronto. Checkins will begin at 9pm sharp. Special thanks to Terry VE3NSV for providing the live stream, and thanks to Dave VE7LTD (the inventor of IRLP) for allowing us space on the Vancouver Reflector for our net. Also, sincere thanks to Dave VA3BU for providing me access to the net on his repeater, VA3RVU in Brampton, Ontario (145.450 – 103.5 PL, IRLP node 2900)
See you all there!!
Ohhh… I’m so depressed. HamSexy’s on-the-air Net was… too HamSexy.
I just tuned in to my first HamSexy Net, expecting the usual irreverence and fun of the website.
What I ran into was instead one of my biggest pet peeves… another BORING Ham Radio Net!
Now don’t get me wrong, Nets are fine if they have a purpose, but in the spirit of HamSexy I have to share my “Net Pet Peeves” list and perhaps the HamSexy Net will pick up on some of these.
Let’s start off with some background: My local clubs all have Nets. In addition to the clubs, every special interest organization has their own Nets also.
Let’s summarize the typical Ham Radio Net:
1. Net Controller starts off with a huge preamble about what the Net’s about. Usually this includes some platitudes about how useful the Net is and how much wonderful information one can gain from the Net.
2. Next, the Net Controller asks for Club Officers and Committe Members. These are hams not much unlike the typically overstuffed folks that HamSexy has made a “living” off of – folks that think they’re highly important in the grand scheme of Ham Radio Life. (Yes, I’ve had dumb volunteer jobs with clubs and been forced to check in during this portion of the Net to pass useful information — stuff like:
“Hey, quit calling me at home, I know the @#(*&! repeater is dead and I need to go up there with a service monitor and figure out what the (*&@# died in it. Thanks for the 50th report that you can’t hit it from your basement with 150mW. We’ll strive to do better.
3. Next we go on to the part that makes me insane… it’s called “General Checkins”. This is where all of us listening to the Net with absolutely nothing useful to say throw our callsign out like anyone cares that we’re really here and listening, and get on “the list”… ooh, the big list… we’re all important now! Whooo hoo!
Then the net controller proceeds to call all of us in turn to ask us if we had anything to add to the Net.
Standard HamSexy Net responses:
– Weather. (SkyWarn anyone? Yep… the majority of the HamSexy Net sounded like SkyWarn Net tonight… AWESOME.)
– “Nothing going on here”. (Duh. Thanks for letting us know.)
– Thanks for letting me check into the Net! (Ohh, I’m all warm and fuzzy inside. I love you guys. Want a cookie?)
– Did you get my e-mail? (The only possible use for a Net… Could you go check your e-mail and turn off the @#%%&@ radio please? I’m trying to COMMUNICATE with you.)
Optional/Extra Credit:
– If the Net is linked over the Internet, the Net Controller and maybe some “assistants” who are cool need to make sure to announce how many stations are linked. Extra points for saying that some link somewhere isn’t working right. I’ve been guilty of this one… oh, say… five years ago when we really thought the links might not be working properly. Nowadays, WHO CARES?
– Use of ICAO phonetics (especially if you repeat them numerous times) over an FM repeater. This is always an excellent way to sound HamSexy. You know, if you say the letters slowly and accurately, everyone will really know what they are. This isn’t HF.
– Always give the other station’s callsign and yours every time the Net changes hands. It makes the Net longer and serves no useful purpose on FM repeaters other than to remind those of us who’ve fallen asleep who all is checked in with no traffic.
– All Net Controllers are required on every over to remind the Net that they’re the Net Controller.
– The Net Controller MUST stop every three to five useless over’s and ask if there are any other people so excited to check-in that they’ll explode in their vehicles if they don’t get their callsign on THE BIG LIST.
– For the older crowd: Any discussion of medical problems. Now we’re all getting older and we’re all headed for the grave, no one’s getting out of this life alive, but any mention of your gall bladder surgery is an immediately recognizable HamSexy Net Comment(TM) unless you’re under the age of 35.
There’s probably many more. Let’s see what the HamSexy crowd can come up with… what do you think? How would you “fix” the standard Bore-The-Living-BeJeebus-Out-Of-Anyone-Listening ham radio “Net”.
Suggestions for a fun Net:
Net Controller keeps track of boring people and a scorecard is kept, preferrably on a website for all eternity, about who’s had the most boring comments ever. All of the above are worth a point, and the Extra Credit items are worth two.
Start a contest to see who can bore the hell out of their fellow hams. Negative points for originality. Any mention of any of the above items automatically disqualifies participants from gaining points for that week.
Better: Gong Show style voting. American Idol. Star Search. Whatever. Anyone exceptionally boring with no information for the Net is immediately reprimanded by the Net Controller, talk show style. “Alright Bob, that was exceedingly boring and long-winded. I have to move on and take another check-in now.”
You guys come up with some… After loving the HamSexy.com site for quite some time, as one of my co-workers says with feeling:
The HamSexy Net hurt my SOUL!
🙂
Nate WY0X
Jeez, what a bitch 🙂
Aren’t you just perfect.
I’m sorry we all can’t be ‘wacky’ to your specifications.
The net doesn’t exist to be mean or to make us come across as assholes. it’s just a simple, informal net…. nothing more, nothing less.
If we let you down, then don’t listen. It’s that simple!
Consider yourself gonged….
Holy sh1t some people are just NEVER happy.
At the end of the day, we are are still AMATEUR RADIO OPERATORS, and some of us professionals, we do maintain a certain level of decorum. There are RULES that still need to be followed.
If you want complete wackyness and uncontrolled garbage, go and join the idiots on CB and FRS.
We still have respect and courtesy.
Ha… I guess the three responses so far are pretty much what I expected. Lots of assumptions and not much laughter. C’mon guys… where’s the fun! Seriously! I’m not complaining, I’m laughing at the irony of having a formal HamSexy Net. I’ll explain…
You see, the reason I love the HamSexy website is its overall theme: To not take ourselves so seriously.
All the pictures of REACT-mobiles, SkyWarn nuts, and general mayhem on the website all says one thing: “These guys take themselves WAY too seriously. See how funny hams are?”
I tuned into the Net thinking – “Hey! These guys will be fun!” and had a horrible let-down. It wasn’t fun, it was a standard zero-useful-information Ham Net. Not even any discussion about what’s ON THE WEBSITE.
Why is it called the HamSexy Net anyway? There wasn’t any HamSexy traffic other than someone whining about the file format of a particular video clip… which is about a 30 second Google search and a single shell command to fix. It really was a “How’s the weather?” Net… and with all the fun poked at SkyWarn on the website, you really really don’t have to go very far to see how ironic and hilariously funny that is!
No humor, no fun, just hams taking themselves WAY too seriously. Same thing with the above comments… everyone’s all up in arms about a…. NET.
It’s a Net! It’s NOTHING. It’s not even useful (other than getting that darn file converted off of Quicktime or whatever…) VERY FEW HAM NETS HAVE A PURPOSE… It’s not HamSexy’s fault… they just don’t! 🙂
It was exactly what HamSexy’s website holds up the firey warning signs against by mocking those who do it… take themselves too seriously.
You see… the standard ham radio Net bores the life out of anyone not a ham. Listen to one sometime like you’re not a Ham. Pretend you’re just some dude who stumbled across a radio lying in the dirt… Yep, I’d turn it off and go four-wheeling too.
I’m not saying we have to stop having Nets, or that the people running them are somehow bad people… by far and away NO. They’re just boring. Can’t we admit that as a Ham populace?
People can do with their time what they like, 100% absolutely! But I just thought there might be something different out there when I heard there was a HamSexy Net.
Maybe it’s just hype, maybe it’s just my own desires to see hams act a little more like we’re not some strange group from another planet, but it was a let-down.
Am I saying I’d never check in again? Hell no… I’m a Ham! Hams do this dumb stuff… just like the photos on the website. It’s — quite frankly — who we are.
The site is genius, really. The site is long-overdue in the Ham Community. We need to learn to laugh at ourselves a bit.
That I’ve heard people clamor that HamSexy should be “banned” from various things shows you’re actually doing the right things, as crazy as that may sound. Every change in a community always seems “crazy” at first.
Geek reference: HamSexy brings balance to the Force. Ha… oh God, did I type that?
Is that okay? Yeah. Crazy is good. Not out of control or without RULES… but I do get a kick out of that one… there’s RULES for a Net?
It’s a bunch of folks sitting at their radios to say NOTHING… and there’s RULES for it! AWESOME! (Just think about how FUNNY that is… REALLY REALLY FUNNY… just for a minute. It’s Dilbert-esque, even!)
I say… you’re 100% awesome, HamSexy… but the Net was a huge let-down. I had no right to really expect greatness from a Net, but I did dream once.
We all somehow want to make our presence in the world meaningful and let other people know we’re here… and that’s where the traditional Net heads downhill… fast.
So more realistically most Nets seem to really want to have “check-ins”. These are really so other people know you’re there and you love them, er… so to speak. Yes, I like you enough I listened to your Net. You’re cool. What a guy.
Seriously. Why else would I tune in? Why else does
anyone tune in?
So… recommendations for moving a Net along… for the standard Ham Radio Net:
– Take checkins once. If people can’t get their asses to a radio on time for the Net, they can hang around and chat after the Net or whatever. No stopping ten times for them. They’re late. They can learn to live with that.
– Ask people a question relevant to the topic of the Net that they have to answer. At least this gets rid of the “I don’t know why I’m here” people or makes them think a little bit about the topic. Try to make the topic fun, but hey… okay sometimes there’s nothing. Just say so and hang out and chat instead. Who needs a Net?
– Don’t do a round of “AB0YZ your turn!”… If someone has traffic they should say so.
– Mainly… close it down as fast as possible and have a nice roundtable to get a REAL human discussion going. Roundtables are where real hamming gets done. You meet people with similar interests, have discussions, and generally do HAM stuff.
Keep the Net for the formal information and tack a request to hang around for a round-table onto the end of the Net. Maybe tie it to a Net-related topic but call it informal.
That’s how I’ve been begging my ham club for years to do things… who needs to CHECK IN so they can play Newsline to them, for God’s sake? Just play it. crontab it on the friggin IRLP node and be done with it. After it finishes, make a couple of announcements… “ahh, we know the southern repeater is down… we’re working on it.” And get on with life.
Most Net formality only really works well and serves a purpose in the noisy world of HF. On an FM repeater or Internet-linked system… just say what needs to be said and be done… then talk to your friends. Maybe have them throw callsigns out so everyone knows who’s there and a couple of folks will help by writing them down and keeping the roundtable moving. It works…
Again… love the website. Nets bore me to death. To each their own! Glad you’re there!
Good fucking lord.. never before has anyone typed so much yet said so little.
Quit whining, man. You’re trying to come off as profound but only ending up looking like a pretentious, arrogant crybaby.
The net’s just a way for people who visit the site “HAMSEXY DOT COM.. hence the calling of it the “HAMSEXY NET”…..
So you thught the net was a let-down. So what? Boo fucking hoo. This site doesn’t exist to entertain you. If you didn’t like it, move on. We certainly don’t want to hear you pontificate about abslutley nothing
You want some improvement? Here’s the first step; shut the fuck up.
Bravo.
Clyde got grumpy but still didn’t discuss the topic at hand. Big tough Clyde behind the keyboard there just jumped straight into the Jerry Springer style insults. Nicely done, man!
8 post total and it went from “We’re wonderful hams who are civilized and courteous” (paraphrased, of course) to “shut the fuck up”.
You guys are too easy.
LOL… hopefully someone at least thought about how to make their own “Net” less boring.
Never had a club membership sign-up come in that said, “Oh God, I heard that thing you do on Sunday morning… I think you call it a Net! It was so awesome, I had to join the ham club.”
But it *could* be done!