TurboMinivan
Still plays with cars
- Location
- Lehi, UT
Here is a new topic. In his original post, Steve said:
This is true in the sense that only one person should transmit while everybody else listens. That's certainly easy enough when there are only two people in the conversation. But what happens in a group discussion? Especially on the repeater--where its wide area coverage means multiple people are listening and may want to jump into the conversation--it commonly happens that two people speak at the same time. When this happens, it is called doubling (or it may be referred to as a double).
When a repeater is keyed up by two transmissions, it just does what a repeater is supposed to do: it transmits what it hears. The result is usually garbled output. However, the exact effect will vary depending on a few factors. If both signals that hit the repeater are nearly equal in strength, the repeater will 'combine' them and the output will be unintelligible. If one signal is significantly stronger than the other, the output will still be a bit garbled but we will usually be able to make out what the person with the stronger signal is saying. If one person's signal is extremely stronger than the other, we probably won't hear any garbling at all; the only way to know there was a double is if the stronger signal person stops talking and un-keys before the weaker signal person does the same--the instant person A stops talking, suddenly we hear person B finishing off their thought.
How do we react? Usually somebody else (the next person to key up) will announce, "you guys doubled there" or something to that effect, and he'll invite each person to take a turn and restate whatever they just said. In the latter case where someone's signal was extremely stronger than the other person's signal, we might even say, "Steve walked all over you" or, "Steve stomped on you" or something similar. It's no big deal; we just give everyone a chance to again say what they said and then we move on.
As you might guess, the chances of this happening increase with the number of discussion participants. To minimize the chances of doubling, we try to have organized group discussions. As people enter a conversation, they take up a natural order of speaking (based on when/how they enter the conversation) and we usually try to keep things going in that same order. For example, say Steve and I are talking. The conversation obviously goes Steve/Dempsey/Steve/Dempsey/etc. But right after I un-key, John breaks in to make a comment. Steve invites John to speak, which he does, and then Steve proceeds to give his response. Assuming John stays in the conversation, it now goes like this: John/Steve/Dempsey/John/Steve/Dempsey/etc. After another few minutes, Steve un-keys and Brett breaks in. I invite Brett to speak (since I was next in line), and after he does I take my turn. Now it goes like this: John/Steve/Brett/Dempsey/John/Steve/Brett/Dempsey/etc.
Do not let this overwhelm you. If you're talking in a group and it's getting so large that you cannot recall who speaks next, there is no need to panic. To preserve order, you can conclude your comment by simply picking somebody and saying, "I'll turn it over to Steve." At that point, everyone will allow Steve to speak next. If this means going out of order, usually Steve will then pass the conversation to whoever was supposed to be next... or, if he can't remember, he might even somewhat sheepishly state, "I don't remember who is next. I'll hand it to you, Dempsey." No matter what happens, it's okay. Maybe you're multitasking, maybe a sudden distraction caused you to lose track, or whatever. It doesn't matter. Nobody will judge you for it, I promise. We're all friends on the air, so you have absolutely nothing to fear.
That brings up another thing: breaking in. Different regions of the country seem to have different protocols for properly breaking in to a conversation. In some places, using the word 'break' is acceptable. In other places, operators associate the word 'break' with some sort of emergency (at least according to what you read online). Is there a way to avoid this possible confusion? You bet--just use your call sign. Here locally on the 146.760 machine, we often go for shorthand by usually just using the suffix of our call sign; instead of saying, "KG7ETK" I might just interject with, "ETK" instead. The next guy in line is going to acknowledge you either way, so do whatever feels comfortable to you. What if it is your turn and you heard somebody break in? Acknowledge the break and ask him/her to speak. Easy.
One last thing. One common ham radio shorthand is the term 73. This is an end-of-conversation salutation which essentially means "have a good day/best wishes/take care/be safe/etc" all wrapped up into one. We ham radio operators are a courteous bunch, so we use this all the time. Imagine you are in a group chat as described above, with multiple participants, when one person says he needs to leave the conversation. We will each want to wish the outgoing operator 73 in turn, let him exit the discussion, and then we'll get back to the topic at hand. Be considerate and let everybody put in their 73 before you continue rambling on about the topic.
This is true in the sense that only one person should transmit while everybody else listens. That's certainly easy enough when there are only two people in the conversation. But what happens in a group discussion? Especially on the repeater--where its wide area coverage means multiple people are listening and may want to jump into the conversation--it commonly happens that two people speak at the same time. When this happens, it is called doubling (or it may be referred to as a double).
When a repeater is keyed up by two transmissions, it just does what a repeater is supposed to do: it transmits what it hears. The result is usually garbled output. However, the exact effect will vary depending on a few factors. If both signals that hit the repeater are nearly equal in strength, the repeater will 'combine' them and the output will be unintelligible. If one signal is significantly stronger than the other, the output will still be a bit garbled but we will usually be able to make out what the person with the stronger signal is saying. If one person's signal is extremely stronger than the other, we probably won't hear any garbling at all; the only way to know there was a double is if the stronger signal person stops talking and un-keys before the weaker signal person does the same--the instant person A stops talking, suddenly we hear person B finishing off their thought.
How do we react? Usually somebody else (the next person to key up) will announce, "you guys doubled there" or something to that effect, and he'll invite each person to take a turn and restate whatever they just said. In the latter case where someone's signal was extremely stronger than the other person's signal, we might even say, "Steve walked all over you" or, "Steve stomped on you" or something similar. It's no big deal; we just give everyone a chance to again say what they said and then we move on.
As you might guess, the chances of this happening increase with the number of discussion participants. To minimize the chances of doubling, we try to have organized group discussions. As people enter a conversation, they take up a natural order of speaking (based on when/how they enter the conversation) and we usually try to keep things going in that same order. For example, say Steve and I are talking. The conversation obviously goes Steve/Dempsey/Steve/Dempsey/etc. But right after I un-key, John breaks in to make a comment. Steve invites John to speak, which he does, and then Steve proceeds to give his response. Assuming John stays in the conversation, it now goes like this: John/Steve/Dempsey/John/Steve/Dempsey/etc. After another few minutes, Steve un-keys and Brett breaks in. I invite Brett to speak (since I was next in line), and after he does I take my turn. Now it goes like this: John/Steve/Brett/Dempsey/John/Steve/Brett/Dempsey/etc.
Do not let this overwhelm you. If you're talking in a group and it's getting so large that you cannot recall who speaks next, there is no need to panic. To preserve order, you can conclude your comment by simply picking somebody and saying, "I'll turn it over to Steve." At that point, everyone will allow Steve to speak next. If this means going out of order, usually Steve will then pass the conversation to whoever was supposed to be next... or, if he can't remember, he might even somewhat sheepishly state, "I don't remember who is next. I'll hand it to you, Dempsey." No matter what happens, it's okay. Maybe you're multitasking, maybe a sudden distraction caused you to lose track, or whatever. It doesn't matter. Nobody will judge you for it, I promise. We're all friends on the air, so you have absolutely nothing to fear.
That brings up another thing: breaking in. Different regions of the country seem to have different protocols for properly breaking in to a conversation. In some places, using the word 'break' is acceptable. In other places, operators associate the word 'break' with some sort of emergency (at least according to what you read online). Is there a way to avoid this possible confusion? You bet--just use your call sign. Here locally on the 146.760 machine, we often go for shorthand by usually just using the suffix of our call sign; instead of saying, "KG7ETK" I might just interject with, "ETK" instead. The next guy in line is going to acknowledge you either way, so do whatever feels comfortable to you. What if it is your turn and you heard somebody break in? Acknowledge the break and ask him/her to speak. Easy.
One last thing. One common ham radio shorthand is the term 73. This is an end-of-conversation salutation which essentially means "have a good day/best wishes/take care/be safe/etc" all wrapped up into one. We ham radio operators are a courteous bunch, so we use this all the time. Imagine you are in a group chat as described above, with multiple participants, when one person says he needs to leave the conversation. We will each want to wish the outgoing operator 73 in turn, let him exit the discussion, and then we'll get back to the topic at hand. Be considerate and let everybody put in their 73 before you continue rambling on about the topic.
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