Are there any stations really left anymore, or did most of them go to Internet delivery?  I do so miss them...  Been doing pirates for the past few years...

2EU has the answer that has been the more or less accepted practice for as long as I've been a ham.  That is to simply wait for a brief lull and give your call one time and then wait.

As another pointed out, most of the time you will be picked up because someone in the roundtable will have heard you.  If they don't acknowledge you within a reasonable amount of time then insert your call again.  If you don't get picked up, move on.

One thing to avoid is to use the word "BREAK."  I've always heard that is used to break into a roundtable because you have emergency traffic or notice.

Hmmmm, repeater on the moon....

Interesting idea (sure do not need full duplex with a ~15sec delay in RX-TX). Would like it to be FM but the power required for the full carrier would require some serious solar energy to support any normal repeater duty-cycle. However, there is plenty of solar energy for a large array of solar panels. 

Need to do some math to determine how much ERP/Watts to get a usable signal to the moon and then the ERP/Watts it will require for the moon-based repeater to send back a reasonable signal to Earth.

There needs to be some serious technical earth staton requirments to keep the number of users low/under control or it will become a serious world wide jam-athon, with only the big guns (1KW EME arrays) dominating the moon station until earth's rotation takes them out of moon LOS. 

Having been away from the sat scene for 15 years, I came back to discover, to my horror, that the sat scene was in a dismal state. Where were the equivalents of AO-10, AO-13, RS-10/11, RS-12/13 etc.

The problem for many hams in NZ and other countries like South Africa, cubesats and the other low flyers hold very little appeal as you can never work DX on them.

And to be honest packet is now boring for many hams, so why even bother with those data sats? A lot of people want voice communication and want to try working towards a DXCC, something which is currently impossible!

The AMSAT website, until it got hacked, was so very out-of-date too. This is meant to be the website that showcases what amateur sat  is about. It says something when that site is not kept current!

So the only thing left is the only reliable high flyer available - the moon! EME seems to be the only 'space' side of the hobby that is growing. Probably because it is challenging, you can work towards a DXCC and is rewarding.

Until decent high flyers are launched, I don't see a lot of interest from many new and existing hams. The sat scene will remain static at best and lose people at worst.

I hope for the best, but....

where to buy a new or used Chameleon V2 Antenna???


Want it because it is only about 4'2" tall  .

I have both.  If I was going to buy another it would be the UV5.  It is smaller and cheaper.  Performance wise they are both pretty close.

I guess I wasn't clear what I meant by a long CQ. I meant short CQs for a longer period of time, not a 10 minute long CQ! I agree that a 10 minute CQ is unacceptable. Sorry for the misunderstanding .

Thanks..

I definitely heard some CQ's but I don't think anyone heard me back.  I have some transmit audio issues (muffled audio on my HT and no external mic) that I'm working on fixing.

Other than that, are you supposed to know your grid location--is this one of the pieces of information you should be providing the contestant?

No, it was Art BELL on late night radio, knocking on your brain!