After a break lasting from 2004 to, well, just now, I have once again procured a ham radio.

It's a simple 2M rig, and I have fairly decent pair of antennae, a medium-gain Yagi and a really nice Diamond Omni Dual-Bander.

Got some good RG-8, wired it all up before the snow started today, and....nothing.

2M is dead, dead, dead. Where did everyone go? I know ham radio is in decline, but is it gone totally?

Many of the old repeaters I used to use are still up, but I call, no answer. I know I'm reaching, I know I have a good signal, I even auto-patched through a repeater and called myself just to see how I sounded - it was fine. But empty!

Pretty darn surprising.