So you call CQ, or just tune through the bands.  What are you looking for, that is, with whom do you wish to speak.  I've seen contacts, and heard many more, where the guy only wants to talk about his radio and antennas.  Once he's exhausted what he wants to discuss, such as his ham gear, he off and saying 73 so he can call CQ and find someone else whom he can talk about his station all over again anew.  I never would have gotten even my novice if I was limited to just ham radio topics.  I realize blind hams is more like a net where we normally talk about just ham radio topics but I've been on the internet for 18 years and been on probably 50 mailing lists and the only ones that restrict the topic do so out of volume.  I mean, if you have 2500 subscribers, you best keep your hand on the break handle as the moderator or all hell will break loose.  I don't think, although I haven't checked lately, that this lisps does not even run 200 subscribers.  I could be wrong, like I said, because I haven't checked of late.  Regardless, when I need kind of an electronics device answer, or a computer answer, or a cell phone question, or an internet question, the first thing I do is think about posting on blind hams because I figure here, somebody will know the answer.  I was thinking of selling something that was an electronic device, not ham related, and I thought, Now that's something some hams would like to have but I didn't post it for fear I'd be busted by those on the list that think this list is only for ham radio topics.  Have you checked with the list owner concerning his rules, or have you forgot the list rules and guidelines?  Running people off the list isn't our job because we don't own the list.  As a ham, I'd go crazy if I worked somebody who only wished to talk ham radio yet it is my favorite hobby.  I think traffic nets are weird the have a list of 100 people and the net control calls each call sign, his name, and location, one by one and has a short conversation with each one but you can't tell them they are pushing your buttons by taking half the night reading down a list when it could be concluded in 15 minutes and free up band space.  At the school for the blind, we burned our 30 to 40 minutes of free time after lunch sitting on the Nebraska and Iowa noon nets just for our calls to be mentioned.  We normally couldn't stay for the complete role call, so we often had to check in early, and run for our lockers when the bell rang for classes to begin.  I was a net control on all types of CW nets for many years and loved traffic handling.  I was also a standing net control several times a week on the Nebraska sideband net and we just called sections of the alphabet on the SSB net because we had two nets back to back an hour apart, and the regional ten CW net and the Nebraska CW net in-between the two nets.  In my old age, and after hundreds of thousands of messages, maybe even a million, I have learn to track topics only or even collecting, marking, all the unwanted topics and deleting them at one push of the del key.  Maybe these new computers don't have such features any more.  When the dead bands are open, tune around and see just how many different things hams are talking about.  Better yet, jump down to the CW bands and there find new life to the hobby.  If you are new with the code, stay above 50 on each band and you will always find QRS stations, that is, guys working slow code.  On 30 meters, the only band restricted to just CW, too bad it is only 50 KHz wide, hang out around 10.125 and you'll find lots of slow code guys just itching to get an answer to the 5 or 4, or 3 Words Per Minute CQ.  Too bad we have no real novice bands any more.  I used to run a novice CW net on 80 and 15 meters when I was 14.  I've had 6 hour QSOes even as a novice, telling jokes, talking politics, religion, and just about everything else under the sun, and all on CW.  You want to be bored?  Listen to the role call on a large traffic net some evening.  I've got a friend who checks into probably 10 75 meter nets every night.  He has done this for years.  It is part of the hobby for him so why should I care.  I have 316 countries worked; this guy has his Worked All Y L, young ladies, certificate for all 50 states with contacts just with gals.  I could have a dozen certificates from the ARRL but I've never applied for even one after I've been a ham 46 years so far, too.  So this is just one hams viewpoint; for what that's worth on this ham radio list.  The week this list was formed, I joined.  I think it started up shortly after I started blind exchange, blind-x,  that Ann Parson's owns now and that was nearly 18 years ago.  I like blind hams for many different reasons and even with a few hundred off topic messages over the years.  If you are crazy enough to read every freaking message on any list, then pin a rose on your nose, and pat yourself on the back but I'm just too freaking old to read everything any more.  Oh, yes, I understand the blind bitching stuff but if you are going to hang out with blind people on any list, you are going to hear that so get used to it or submit your complaints directly to the list owner and do that off list while you are at it so we don't have to listen to your own bitching while everybody else is doing the same thing you are doing.  Lighten up, too.  Some people are blind more than physically, if you get my drift.

Phil.
K0NX