Geyser Notes

Here are tips based on my observations on how these have been used the last week or so:

• Talk slowly and distinctly. Speak up, because my volume control only goes up to 10.
• Don't press the "Send" button and immediately start talking. Receivers can take a second or two to recognize your carrier signal, and start playing what you are saying.
• Repeat any times, or even spell out the digits the second time.
• Give people time to write down the first time before you announce the second.
• Figure out what you are going to say before transmitting. Get to the point. Don't spend the first 15 seconds doing your William Buckley impression
• To get the maximum range, hold so that the antenna is vertical. (Don't nod down to talk into a radio held at an angle.)
• Put your radio where you won't keep hitting the [expletive deleted] "Call Button". You know, the one that makes a chirping sound in every radio at Grand or Giant. Even, better see if the instruction manual says you can disable it completely. Don't make me come find you...
• If people keep asking you to repeat, or to have your reports relayed, that is a good sign that you're doing something wrong, or that your radio isn't working right.
• If someone is calling out Giant hot period information, your Plume or Atomizer time can wait.
• And if someone does call out one of those times during a hot period, they've already made their decision on where they'd rather be, so don't respond by telling them to get to Giant.
• Why is it that people who, in person can't shut up, on the radios think that saying nothing during a Giant hot period is being descriptive?

Actually, the general behavior is a lot better than my last times here, without all the yakking between the same two or three people asking their friends to "switch to five." If anything, the yakking there is comes from the NPS, not gazers.