SCARA Repeater Guidelines

The following rules were made by the K2BR/R repeater committee and approved by the Board of Directors of the Southern Counties Amateur Radio Association (SCARA), P.O. Box 121, Linwood, NJ 08221. Courteous and legal use of a repeater is the responsibility of every amateur radio operator. Individuals who are unable to abide by these guidelines may be asked to refrain from using the K2BR/R repeater.
1. Emergency use of this repeater always takes precedence over all other uses.
2. Organized activities such as nets or training drills have priority over routine conversations.
3. Before keying your transmitter, listen for any activity on the repeater.
4. Keep individual transmissions short. The timer is set to three minutes to follow FCC regulations. However, someone who talks for that long in one transmission may be using valuable time if someone else has an emergency.
5. Please limit your continuous use of a repeater to a reasonable length.
6. It is considered bad etiquette to interrupt an ongoing conversation unless you have an emergency or something meaningful to contribute to the conversation.
7. Remember that in many areas, the pro-word BREAK is used for routine break-ins. When visitors or new users use it as such, very gently explain that the standard usage on this repeater is to reserve the pro-word "BREAK" for things that are of more than routine urgency, but not true emergencies. An automobile accident with no injuries is a good example of a situation where the pro-word BREAK may be appropriate.
8. While we want our repeater to be active, it is discourteous to use a repeater to talk to someone who is within easy simplex range. If you can hear each other on the repeater input frequency, switch to a simplex frequency for that long-winded conversation.
9. Our repeater has a courtesy tone to indicate that the other party has released the key to end their transmission. Always wait for the courtesy tone so that someone with an emergency or someone wishing to join the conversation has ample opportunity to be heard.
10. You must identify your station with your call-sign every ten minutes and at the end of a conversation. While the FCC rules no longer require that you identify at the beginning of a conversation, it is still good amateur practice and common courtesy to do so.
11. Whenever you transmit, always identify your station, even if you just key up the repeater for test purposes. "Kerchunking" (a short, unidentified transmission to "bring up the repeater") is illegal and considered poor amateur practice.
12. Keep your activities on our repeater responsible and courteous. Off-color remarks or comments have no place in amateur radio.
13. The FCC rules permit the use of amateur radio for transmissions of a technical or personal nature. Unfortunately, some amateurs use the repeaters to discuss what they don't like about the actions of another amateur or a particular group. Such comments have no place on a repeater. Keep them to yourself or take them off the air directly to the individual(s) involved.
14. Any SCARA repeater control operator may turn off the repeater(s), however, before doing so, a verbal (on-air) warning will be issued to the parties involved in the offending QSO and if said QSO still continues, the repeater(s) will be turned off immediately.
15. As in all of amateur radio, transmissions for business purposes is illegal. Please be especially mindful of this whenever using the repeater.
16. To defray some of the costs of operation and maintenance, regular users are encouraged to support the K2BR/R repeater by becoming members of the Southern Counties Amateur Radio Association. Annual dues are $20 for single membership and $25 for family membership.
A user who does not obey these rules will be sent a letter of "Warning." If they continue to violate rules, a second letter will be sent that will order them "Not to use K2BR repeater." If the person still uses the K2BR/R repeater a letter will then be sent to the FCC for their intervention.

Last Updated... September 11, 2020 0030 UTC