Vintage Forum

[WA6OXN]

Just generally a lurker here on the Batboard, but has anyone come across a forum just for the vintage Motorola radios?

Like the Motracs, Motrans, Micors, HT200/HT-220/MT500/MX series radios?

Any thought as to maybe a separate forum on here for the older "vintage" equipment?

-Steve

[d119]

I agree - a "Vintage Motorola Equipment" forum would be a very nice addition to the board.

[WB6DGN]

Great idea. Hope there's some interest in this. Have Motran VHF LB and HB radios and would be great to "compare notes" with others interested in similar equipment. Might also look at a "Buy, Sell, Trade" section for only this type equipment as well.
Tom

[jhooten]

The lunch boxes!

[FireCpt809]

Its not on here but there is a facebook page for Hams that use motorola equipment. There is alot of vintage and rare stuff posted over there.

[KitN1MCC]

i vintage forum on here would be cool. i know the vintage forum on elightbars is a hot forum

[escomm]

Hey now, there's still a ton of Micors in service... public safety service!

[alex]

I can easily make one if you guys want....

[WB6NVH]

There's a vintage Motorola forum on the Yahoo Groups and it gets basically zero traffic month after month. That might be an insight into starting another one elsewhere, but maybe nobody knows about it.

There is also a Motorola Twin-V and T-Power group in addition to the Vintage Motorola Group on Yahoo Groups, but that one has about zero traffic too.

Nonetheless it's gratifying that other people are interested in this old stuff too!

[mikegilbert]

Hey now, there's still a ton of Micors in service... public safety service!

We just yanked out VHF Micors out of our news Rigs- along with 800mhz MX360s in MXVAs.

[WB6DGN]

There's a vintage Motorola forum on the Yahoo Groups and it gets basically zero traffic month after month. That might be an insight into starting another one elsewhere, but maybe nobody knows about it.

I didn't know about it or I would have, at least, checked it out. I thought about that too after I posted. Maybe I should have said it would be great IF it gets used. One way to find out, I guess!
Tom

[WA6OXN]

I would volunteer to moderate it if a Vintage Forum gets going.

-Steve

[chrismoll12]

great idea! I love to play around with the older stuff I just got a nice brick - the MX300R to add to the older stuffs

[jnglmassiv]

I dunno, guys. In general, I vote against forum spawns. This is doubly true when the existing forums aren't particularly busy and the new forum isn't radically different from its parent.

For example, while I like the Radioreference message board, I do wish they'd condense a bunch of the forums and subforums. Take the Antennas and Associated Hardware mess. They take a nice, broad forum topic that I'm interested in and break it into five subforums I never read and one that has (literally) 25 times the threads of the next most popular and that everyone posts to anyway. I understand the idea but there's just only so much message board time each week and a bunch of new forums doesn't work for me. Even the batboard has a number of forums that I seldom enter, not because I'm not interested but I'll just check them tomorrow.

So I pose these questions and offer my answers:
Is there a need or desire?
A vintage gear forum may be efficient in the same fashion that any other forum is. It organizes discussions into logical groupings and helps manage searching and browsing. There's a limit to the usefulness, though, with increasing granularity. I think it would ultimately reduce my time browsing the board and would certainly limit the threads that I read.
What if it doesn't happen?
Then there are some threads about the vintage gear mixed in with the more contemporary stuff. So we get 4-6 new posts a day in General Motorola Radio Discussion instead of 3-5. We'll all see them and perhaps contribute to them.

Anyway, I think I rest my case.
How would you divide vintage vs non?

[WA6OXN]

I would say that you could divide between a vintage piece of equipment and current generation equipment, by just saying if you can program it with a computer and RSS then it's current generation.

If it's crystal, PROM, or EEPROM controlled then it's vintage.

Another thought if folks come across channel elements and/or proms with known frequencies it might be nice to be able to trade them, or make them available versus just chucking them into the trash. Be kind of cool to fire some of the old gear up and be able to listen to some of the local public service stuff.

-Steve WA6OXN