Speaking of that, “I want a repeater pair for my area; you say there are no pairs available. You guys have one listed, but I have not heard it on the air for a long time. What’s the deal?

1. Sometimes trustees remove their repeaters from operation and don’t tell us. For this reason, we have what is known as an “abandoned pair procedure” You apply for that pair, and let me know that you are applying for it under the abandoned pair rule. I will attempt to contact that trustee, at first with a request for update of the status of the repeater. I will attempt this at first by email, and if it turns out that I don’t have a valid email address for this trustee, I will send the request by U. S. mail with an SASE. If the letter is returned by the postal service as undeliverable, I will do an internet search to see if I can find any information on this wayward trustee. If I cannot find any new information, then we will decide that the trustee has moved away and most likely taken the repeater with him/her. Then if technical standards are met, you may have the pair.

   In the meantime I will ask you to have at least two other licensed amateurs in the area, send be me a signed statement that they haven’t observed the repeater to be on the air for at least 90 consecutive days.

   If the request for update does not get returned, but no reply is received; then the next step is that I will send out a letter to that trustee advising him that we think the pair is abandoned, and that someone has applied for it under the abandoned pair rule. This letter is sent by Certified Mail, Return Receipt Requested. Meaning the Postal Service will require that someone at that address signs that they received the letter. The Letter Carrier put it tight in someone’s hand at the given address. We, ORSI, will know that it either was or was not delivered. That starts the clock ticking.

   That trustee then has 120 days to get his repeater back on the air, or we will declare the pair abandoned, and award it to the applicant, if his proposed coordinates meet all technical standards. If he sees he can’t get it on the air in 120 days, he may apply to the ORSI board for an extension of time; citing reasons such as inclement weather, or an uncooperative power company, etc. It needs to be fairly legitimate reasons.

   What if the trustee says the machine is on the air, but those of us in the area know it isn’t?

   These things happen, but not too often. In most of the cases, when we’ve contacted the trustee, we find things like equipment has been hit by lightning multiple times and the finances to repair the equipment anymore are just not available. We’ve also ran into cases where the trustee had serious health issues and could not take care of the equipment any more.

   In a case where it gets down to someone being less than honest about a repeater’s status, an ORSI representative, usually the coordinator and/or one or more district officers will quietly come to the area, and observe for themselves whether a repeater is on the air or not, and make the final determination on that basis.