-When emergency communications are in progress, NO, rag chewing is not appropriate.
-With respect to the use of the repeaters by the members and the general public, YES, rag chewing is appropriate, UNDER CERTAIN CONDITIONS.

I should also define rag chewing in the context of this topic. Rag chewing is simply a conversation between two or more hams. I haven't seen a definition of when a conversation becomes rag chewing. It is 3 minutes? 10 minutes? 30 minutes? 1 hour? Practically any conversation can be considered rag chewing, depending on who you talk to.

So what are the certain conditions? It's not appropriate to interrupt nets, be it public service nets, or educational nets like the EOSS balloon launches, public service events, Skywarn nets, or any coordinated use of Pikes Peak FM Association assets to start a casual conversation. This doesn't mean you can't ask the net control station to use the repeater briefly to make a quick call, contact the station, and then move off to another repeater or another frequency. The NCS shouldn't frown upon this (unless they're in the middle of an emergency), and should allow you to make your brief call, but it is okay for the NCS to ask you to be brief in your call.

On days where the weather is perfect, "blue sky" days, no issues with travel advisories, no problems, the repeaters are not busy in use, then friendly conversations between two or more hams are perfectly fine. The one condition ALL hams should abide by when having these friendly, routine conversations (i.e., rag chewing) is to leave ample room for breaks, in case someone does need to break in with an emergency or with priority traffic.

And we should always consider what we call "amateur best practices". As licensed hams, we should adhere to these practices, specifically:

1. Using the minimum power necessary to make your contact (FCC rules §97.313).
2. For local conversations when within range of one another, use simplex.
3. Or if not within line-of-sight, but there is another local coverage repeater available, use that repeater over the wide-coverage repeater.

If you're in Pueblo and the other station is in Denver, then by all means use the wide-coverage repeater. But continue to allow ample room for breaks.

BUT REMEMBER: We do have to keep in mind that even with these best practices, the repeaters are there to be used. If we always sought the local repeaters or simplex for even the shortest of contacts, then the wide-coverage repeaters would never, or rarely, get used. And if they never got used, people would stop using them, even for emergencies. Use the repeaters! That's what they're there for. There's ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WRONG with a husband and wife exchanging "what's for dinner" information. Nor with two hams discussing the wiring connections of a TNC cable. Nor with two hams discussing what transpired at the last HamCon convention planning meeting, or last night's ham club meeting. Or a ham contacting a friend who's driving through town on his way to Wyoming. Or two hams chatting in the morning to set up a lunch time and place to meet. Or someone signing up for Skywarn training. Or two hams talking about their travel experiences to the Black Hills in South Dakota or a contact made via amateur satellite, or making camping arrangements for Field Day. These are some examples of what I have actually heard in the past, and would like to continue to hear in the future. It would make one boring repeater association if no one talked on the repeaters. And one highly inflexible group is we couldn't strike a balance between casual conversations and being prepared for emergencies.

On bad weather days, rag chewing is really not appropriate when there's a strong likelihood that people might need the repeater to make a call for assistance or to make a quick call (or autopatch) home to let family know of some incident. If you require a more extended conversation with someone, and the .97 or 448.45 repeater is the only one that can cover the area, then: leave ample room for breaks, minimize the routine chatter, go with the more important points of your discussion, and continue the conversation when it's more appropriate, such as when the bad weather subsides.

Well, if it's not appropriate to use the repeaters for casual conversation during the emergencies or on bad weather days, then what do we do? Move off to simplex if you're within range of one another (use the REV button on your transceiver to find out if you are), or move to another more local coverage repeater. I suggest that everyone become familiar with other repeaters in the area (see the list of some repeaters at the end of this topic). There are at least a half dozen or a dozen other repeaters in the area. Plus get to know what frequencies are correct for simplex use.

The PPFMA has two other low level, low altitude repeaters which are just coming back on the air after considerable down-time, the 145.265 and the 448.800 repeaters. They're currently not at their final location; we're still awaiting their installation at a final location. The coverage right now is not the best, and there are some technical problems that need to be worked out. So I'm not going to recommend that you go to those repeaters right now. Where to go instead?

There is one particular repeater owner that's more than happy to have people use his repeater. A lot of people might not know him very well or know of his repeater. Barry Cook W0MOG operates a VHF repeater on 147.390, standard offset (which is +600 kHz), and with a tone of 103.5 Hz. It's available for ARES, for rag chewing, it's basically an open repeater. I believe it's located on a building downtown.

Regarding rag chewing in general ... it's been a part of ham radio since he
dawn of ham radio. People do it on HF, VHF, UHF using SSB, CW, FM simplex, and yes, on FM repeaters. I've rag chewed many times on these repeaters and it's perfectly okay, under the right circumstances. Those that want to monitor the .97 repeater strictly for emergencies can take advantage of the DTMF tones that are generated with there is an emergency activation. We can transmit a DTMF tone sequence of 6-9-7 and you can use your radio's DTMF squelch feature to monitor for that sequence. Some radios don't have DTMF squelch, but there are after-marker or add-on devices that can be built as kits or purchased which can provide this functionality. If you're interested in that it might be worth it to look into the purchase of one of these.

Bottom line ... what good is a repeater if no one uses it? We have repeaters at great locations. We don't want to minimize their use for casual conversations, but I also want to stress the importance of them being available for emergency communications or priority traffic.

So if you find yourself in an extended conversation, remember the "best practices" mentioned earlier first, and if you need to stay on the repeater, leave plenty of time for others to break in. Also announce periodically that if anyone else needs to use the repeater, please break in. Then make sure you acknowledge them and let them use the repeater when they break in.

The last thing I want to do is to discourage the use of these repeaters. Quite the contrary, I do want to encourage more use of the repeaters. Here's a thought ... If more people are actually listening to the repeater and using it, it's more likely that when someone does have an emergency they'll find someone there to answer their call for assistance.

One question was asked: what good is a repeater if you hear the same people talking, day in and day out, and you get tired of listening to them? That's a good question, and there's no straight answer. Either we encourage the use of the repeaters or we don't. Probably any repeater in the area, you'll hear the same people time and again. If you hear the same people over and again you'll want to turn the volume down. It's a choice. We can activate the DTMF squelch. Remember that a repeater is a party line too; it's not there for only the use of a few. Do we want the repeaters available for emergency communications only? Or to be use by a certain group of hams only? This goes back to the "best practices" mentioned earlier. Those need to be instilled into the minds of all hams. As we found out on the net, everyone has a different opinion on this topic.

Another comment was made that the older Radio Shack HTX-202 radios, even though they're older and less capable, they do have the DTMF squelch option, and they're great for monitoring for the 697 sequence for emergencies.

Comments by others regarding SOME other repeaters available in town (there are more repeaters):

Dave Kucera KC0SPX operates the 448.725 repeater, - 5 MHz offset, 123 Hz tone. This repeater is an open repeater, and Dave would love for people to use his repeater.

Dave Sloan N0EOP, being a board member of the Cheyenne Mountain Repeater Group , also mentioned that the CMRG repeaters are open repeaters, available for rag chewing as well, but also keep in mind to leave ample room for others to break in if there's an emergency. All are welcome to use these:

147.345, +600 kHz offset,
146.760, - 600 kHz offset,
448.100, - 5 MHz offset,
448.000, -5 MHz offset.

I will add here that there are other repeater clubs in and around Colorado Springs whose repeaters are available for a variety of purposes:

Colorado Connection
Colorado Repeater Association
Garden of the Gods Amateur Radio Club
Mountain Amateur Radio Club