The Cleveland Amateur Radio Club is now hosting an on-line chat room on an experimental basis. Anyone is welcome to join. You do not have to be a member of the club, nor do you have to be a licensed amateur radio operator to use the chat room. All we ask is that you please read through this page at least once before you join.
First, let’s get the usual disclaimer out of the way: On-line chat is an un-moderated communications medium. We are not responsible for the content in the chat room. Anyone can log in and say anything at any time. That being said, we do have some basic profanity filters in place on the server-side that will filter out certain keywords. There are also very intelligent individuals out there who will inevitably find creative ways to bypass said filters. When possible, we will do our best to deal with any user who abuses the chat system in such ways (including banning repeat offenders.) Again, enterprising individuals may find ways to evade such bans. In short, we do our best to provide you with a safe, clean chat environment. However, short of having to approve each message before it goes to the public chat (which would be impractical and go against the concept of live chat), we can’t guarantee that a bad word will never make it into the room. Also, do not give out personal details over the chat system, unless you know for certain who you are talking to. Keep in mind it is possible for you to use any nickname, including that of another person (if they are not signed in), so the person on the other end may not be who they say they are.
With that said, here are a few rules/tips to help you out:
- To join chat, you must choose a nickname. We recommend you use your callsign as your nickname so others in the room know who you are.
- If you join the chat and nobody responds to you, it probably means they are away. Not everyone in the room is always watching the room, so it may take a bit for them to reply. Also, there may be some bots (robots) in the room (who will usually have the word “bot” in their nickname, but may not always.) Generally, bots will not talk to you unless you ask them to (using specific commands.)
- The preferable topic is ham radio and/or the club. However, you’re free to chat about anything within reason, as we aren’t overly strict about enforcing the topic. If you get out of line, a channel operator (one with a @, ~, or & before their name) will let you know.
Please note, we have a weather bot (WXBot) in the room. The weather bot can give you current weather conditions, forecasts, and astronomy data for a given location. To use the weather bot, simply type one of the following commands into the chat room:
- !weather <location> (this will give you current conditions for a location)
- !forecast <location> (this will give you forecast for a location)
- !sky <location> (this will give you astronomy data for a location)
For <location> you can use a city and state, ZIP code, or NOAA city code. (e.g. !weather Chattanooga, TN -or- !weather 37404 -or- !weather KCHA) Not all cities have codes, but ZIP codes generally always work.
Ready to chat? Good!
