The Simplex Experience

The Simplex Experience does not advocate that members reject or minimize any other mode of Amateur Radio communications. 

1. Join The Simplex Experience.

2. Monitor 146.52 MHz to assist travelers & make a weekly contact with others in your area using 2-Meter FM Simplex.

3. Tell other Amateur Radio Operators about The Simplex Experience.

4. Enjoy other modes of Amateur Radio communications!

THE MISSION: PART ONE

The Simplex Experience is an organization with a two-part mission. First, members agree to simply monitor 146.52 MHz at their fixed location, and even mobile, if possible. These members agree to employ a second 2-meter receiver, or a scanner with 146.52 set as a "priority" channel. Members will listen for, and assist if necessary, mobile operators who are passing through their area, and who happen to call on 146.52 MHz. Members also agree to employ an antenna of proper design and height to accomplish this purpose. After contact is made with a mobile operator, you can, of course, move to a repeater or another simplex frequency.

But you say your town has 20 repeaters! Yes, but the repeater directory doesn't tell us which repeaters in your area are likely to be answered. Being a "club" or "weather" repeater is not a guaranteed clue. It's a lot a trouble to program in a half-dozen frequencies, and associated tones, on a hit or miss basis when you're not familiar with an area. Hams who are frequent travelers through a particular area are less affected by this "information gap".

Another problem is hourly repeater ID'ing. If you're on the road and need information after 10PM, you may be out of luck as many Hams turn off the radio to keep from being awakened every hour with "This Is The WWW5ABCD Repeater". And since repeater owner's watches are not synchronized, this multiple-repeater ID serenade may go one for more than a minute. Not much different from those old cartoon scenes of the Coo-Coo clock sales room at the top of the hour.

THE MISSION: PART TWO

The second part of our mission is a plan to develop informal groups of member / operators within a community who communicate with each other on a regular basis using 2-Meter FM simplex. The goal is to develop a back-up to repeater and HF operation. Under this plan, active group members need only pick up the microphone and communicate with each other from time to time using 2-Meter FM simplex. If you normally chat with Bill, Joe and Heathcliff on a regular basis, Bill, Joe and Heathcliff will probably be around when there is priority traffic to be passed.

IMPORTANT: The Simplex Experience definition of "priority traffic" is what ever YOU want it to be. This club does NOT have an EMCOMM (Emergency Communications) mission. Once Hams in your community are communicating regularly and reliably on 2 meters, it is up to YOU what you do with that capability.

The traffic might be relevant only to people in your community. A Ham operator receiving the message might tell a few people in the neighborhood, and the message will then be spread to "friends and family" throughout the community. If you need to pass a message, and a non-member answers your call, by all means give them the message.

2-Meter FM is the mode of choice because it is the most common Amateur Radio type to be found in the United States. Morse Code (CW) is very reliable, but there are too few skilled, or interested, operators for the "saturation" effect needed in this program. High Frequency (HF) is certainly long-haul, but not every Ham has sufficient HF privileges, wants HF privileges, or even owns an HF radio. This is not what we need if we want the maximum number of Hams to be capable of receiving AND sending messages.

With 2-Meter FM Simplex, the trade-off is distance. To compensate for lack of distance we use operator saturation. The saturation already exists. All we need is for those operators to use the mode!

Our mission is important at the local level because repeaters can become inoperative for many reasons. There can be power failure, component failure, and repeaters can lose antennas and even towers during storms. We need the maximum number of Hams to be ready when repeaters aren't available. Repeaters are wonderful, but they may have spawned a large sub-group of Hams who would be truly lost if the thing blew a fuse. But… just having a 2-Meter FM rig is not enough. You have to have confidence that there is a "support" group of other members out there listening.

Due to the nature of 2-Meter FM simplex, these groups will be relatively small in size, and close in proximity. As the number of members grows, the easier it will be to pass important traffic within a local area. Operators on the edges of these local areas can pass the traffic to adjacent communities. There is no need for 100-foot towers or 200-watt amplifiers.

The program plan does not include any type of hierarchy or formal nets. There are no local clubs affiliated with The Simplex Experience. There is no plan to have "Station A" contact "Station B", and so on, to pass priority messages. Any such plan is sure to fail as soon as one or two "links" become missing. Instead, eventual success will be achieved by the saturation of populated areas with members.

To further explain, this program is not a net, or collection of nets, that is activated every Tuesday night, or so. It is merely the process of getting enough members in enough areas involved in regular, friendly, informal contacts, so that when the need arises, there will really be no question as to whether or not someone will answer a call, and pass traffic as needed. It's like "word-of-mouth" advertising, or even gossip. However, if a simplex net every Tuesday night will make the program work in your area, then Tuesday night nets it should be!

Traditional traffic nets require a net control operator. This program does not require any leaders. Priority traffic is passed in a "viral" manner. Any operator receiving an important message can pass it along to any other operator within range. When enough operators are in place, traffic can be passed from county to county and state to state on a regular basis.

Remember, this is only a back-up to formal traffic nets and other traffic-handling plans in place.