I'm not sure I know anyone, except perhaps my 87 year old grandmother, and 
my GF's 92 year old grandfather, that don't own a cell phone.
Why use auto patch when you can easily make a more or less private call to 
who you want?
And, it's full duplex instead of half duplex like auto patch.
radio ops are used to keying up and talking and then listening to the other 
persons transmission, but most people aren't, so having a meaningful 
conversation over auto patch with a non-ham is almost impossible.
The only places radio telephone is still used that I know of is in remote 
areas of north western, and northern canada where there is no cellular 
coverage.  And with that, it's all commercial and operated by the regional 
telco...we have one repeater here with auto patch, and it doesn't work most 
of the time...it's more of a novelty than a reliable or useful feature.
Yes, I do pay for my cell phone air time, but I'm going to have that 
regardless, so I might as well use the far more convenient and reliable cell 
phone rather than a flaky or potentially unreliable autopatch.
And if my cell phone battery goes dead, well, I always keep enough change in 
my wallet to use a pay phone if I have to for an emergency or something very 
important.
I've also asked hams on the repeater to make a phone call for me when my 
cell battery is dead, and I'm not near a pay phone, and I just happen to 
have a handheld on me.
I pretty much always have a charged HT in my backpack when I'm travelling 
around the city or out of town just in case.
I haven't heard phone patch on HF in probably 20 years either.

73
Colin, V A6BKX
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "John Miller" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, August 11, 2012 9:39 PM
Subject: Re: Third party rules.


> There's only one repeater I know of in my area with auto patch anymore and
> each club member who chooses to, can pretty much only call home or 
> whatever
> emergency  number they designate. Other than the amateur radio news line
> every week, I don't think that auto patch has been used for anything else 
> in
> 7 or 8 years at the least, maybe more than 10.
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Harvey Heagy" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Saturday, August 11, 2012 6:44 PM
> Subject: Re: Third party rules.
>
>
>> There was a time when we had to do that too.  There was at least one
>> person
>> who was bringing up the autopatch without identifying himself and placing
>> calls to either long distance or 976 numbers.  I had to bring down the
>> patch
>> a few times myself when he did that, or tried to.  The club eventually
>> blocked most of these numbers as well as long distance numbers, and when
>> someone would try to do that, they would get a response in code, "SRI,"
>> which I believe is an abbreviation for sorry.
>> Harvey
>> ----- Original Message ----- 
>> From: "COLLEEN ROTH" <[log in to unmask]>
>> To: <[log in to unmask]>
>> Sent: Saturday, August 11, 2012 4:43 PM
>> Subject: Re: Third party rules.
>>
>>
>>>i have to say that there can be as many flaky people on the low bands as
>>>on
>>>UHFSTVHF.
>>> Not all poor operators are on UHFSTVHF.
>>> Colleen Roth, N8TNV;