Amateur Radio Repeater IDs: And an almost completely forgotten Random Access Character!

This week's episode of the Random Access Thought was designed and assembled in January 2006. The topic is Amateur Radio Repeater IDs. While the vast majority of stateside VHF and UHF repeaters rely solely on controller-generated CW IDs, there are those machines whose station identifications have taken a far more creative turn, usually in the form of clever professionally announced custom voice recordings or select audio clips from popular television programs or big time motion pictures edited to fit the needs of the repeater ID. Some excellent examples sourced from the Internet play this week on This Week.

In this edition, actually the first of two Random Access Thought programs on Repeater IDs, an early and virtually forgotten voice character known as PacketMan visits with Mother Radio with his audio collection of IDs, Much like some of the other voices within the program ensemble, PacketMan speaks with a digitally peculiar and somewhat truncated AX25 burst before each sentence. PacketMan appeared in both Repeater ID RATs and at least one Christmas Special Since then, PacketMan has been MIA. It has been suggested that PacketMan may have morphed into another voice character: TANK. Unfortunately, I am not always privy to these guys' personal lives.

Back then, Mother Radio spoke with a much slower cadence and her tone was a bit screechier. These days MR (Beverly Krasnov) belts it out at a brisker clip and enunciates with more of a Gravel Gertie tone. Plus she's a bit older and certainly a bit bitchier.

In the promos that precede, a much younger sounding Zachary takes a look at a much slower speaking Tick-Tock's collection of obscure television broadcast public service announcements. Folks living in downstate New York who are downloading This Week in Amateur Radio International Podcast Edition #183 may recognize the music used in the RAT promo from "Don't Cross the Street in the Middle of the Block" and "Like Father Like Son", two public service announcements that aired on TV stations back in the 1960's.

In the QSL promo, a then much younger Zach speaks over the two meter radio to a now much older Bryannah about This Week in Amateur Radio reception reports and in this week's BLOG promo, a now much older Zach hangs with the fail-to-launch Cigman talking about fast cars and hot chicks. "Fast cars and hot chicks? What else is there?" Cigman Krasnov c. 2008.