I am a minimalist because I want to be a minimalist. I understand that the FM bird is nothing more than a repeater and the strongest signal takes the bird, even if someone else is talking. "Someone else is talking" is the rude part. Last weekend, I was chasing a rover and got "KC9" out and into the bird (I work full duplux, so know that I was in) and someone took over by stepping on me. Luckily, I got him anyway, but someone was high power and more important than me. That's the way contesters work. But, I don't want to plaster someone's call on the board. I just hope that the person is a member and thinks about it. Getting into a peeing contest with someone is not beneficial to anybody, including the hobby. It used to be that if one said "handheld" or "portable" guys would give them a break, but that doesn't happen anymore. The birds are too crowded for that. There are several people in my ham clubs that want to try satellite operation and myself and my friend Rick (WA9JBQ) loves to mentor them and teach them the proper way to operate. Not everyone has this benefit. I don't know what the answer is. Last Spring one ham was an extremely poor operator on the birds, but is now a better operator. So, something works. But there is always the tendency to crank up the power to get the station that you want, if you have the power available. It is like guys who I know that run 1,500 watts on FT8 to get what they want. I guess it is going to happen and we have to live with that fact.
As soon as I solve my equipment problem with my 847 and the weather turns warmer, I will be back on the linear birds. I sure do miss FO-29. Brad KC9UQR