so ive been running our local club's wednesday night net for about 8 months now and lately the check-ins have dropped off pretty bad. used to get maybe 15-20 stations and now we're lucky to get 8 or 9. not sure if its the time slot (we run at 8pm local) or if people just kind of lost interest after the pandemic thing wound down when everyone was home and bored.

anyway i wanted to ask if anyone here participates in regular weekly nets and what keeps you coming back. also curious if any of you have done special event station stuff tied to a net — like we had a 1x1 callsign for a local centennial thing last year and tried to incorporate it into the net format but it got a little confusing logistically.

mostly just looking for ideas to get numbers back up and maybe make it more interesting. we do have a few newer hams who just got their tickets and they seem to like it but the old timers have kind of drifted away

yeah participation on nets goes in waves, i've noticed that too on the ones i check into. the wednesday 8pm slot might actually be hurting you depending on your area — a lot of folks have stuff going on midweek evenings, kids activities, that kind of thing. the nets i see the most consistent check-ins on tend to be either sunday evening or right around the dinner hour on weekdays, like 6 or 6:30.

one thing that really helped a net i used to help run was adding a little program segment, even just 5 minutes where someone talks about an upcoming contest or a technical tip or whatever. gives people a reason to actually listen instead of just checking in and disappearing. the special event station idea sounds cool but yeah coordinating that with a net format is tricky, you'd almost want to run the 1x1 activation as its own separate thing and just announce it on the net.

I just got my general a few months ago and honestly the weekly net was one of the first things i started doing regularly. its kind of how i got comfortable actually transmitting because it feels low stakes compared to just calling CQ on HF. so for what its worth the newer hams probably appreciate it more than you know even if they dont say anything.

i dont have ideas for getting old timers back but maybe posting the net times on like QRZ or the club website if its not already there? i had no idea our local net even existed for like the first two months until someone mentioned it at a hamfest