AmateurRadio.com

This evening conditions were good and I managed to have a nice QSO with Jaume, EA3NE in Terrassa, near Barcelona, Spain on 80m PSK31 using the Warbler.  That is nice DX for a such a simple rig as the Warbler, although Jaume’s station clearly helped.

From Greely, ON, Canada to Terrassa, Spain

Copy was good as can be seen in the screenshot below.

Screenshot of QSO with EA3NE

The distance comes in at around 6027 km or 3745 miles. Given the Warbler puts out 3W then this QSO exceeds 1000 miles per Watt. Very pleasing!

Distance calculators can be found using Google Maps, Open Street Maps as well as a useful ‘miles per Watt’ calculator at the QRP ARCI website.

In contrast to my giving up the frequency for a DX station while in the middle of a “run” during a contest (as I recently mentioned), I heard a particularly bad bit of operating on last Sunday while trying to work Bob, VP8LP in the Falkland Islands. I’ve worked Bob before on several bands but needed a contact from him on 15m. He had an excellent signal and was steadily working stations, the vast majority of which were good operators, standing by when Bob was working another station and not responding when Bob wasn’t calling them. (Please see my post about The DX Code of Conduct if you haven’t already.) There was, unfortunately, one exception to the “good guys” on the frequency.

As Bob was steadily working the pile, a ham started calling K7NRA on the frequency. After he did this once or twice, assuming that perhaps he was unaware that there was another station on the frequency, I responded to him and said that the frequency was in use and gave my callsign. (The other ham was using his callsign, or what I presume was his, though I neglected to note it. While normally I don’t like to “pick on” people in a public forum, what was going on was heard by dozens of other hams, and if I could remember what it was, I’d post it here.) The other ham said “Well, there’s supposed to be a special event for K7NRA on this frequency and I’m going to call him, this is his announced frequency”.

It was pretty clear that the guy calling wasn’t hearing K7NRA, and aside from that fact that he refused to stop interfering with an active frequency, his general technique was awful. He was calling “blind” (meaning he didn’t hear the other station), and kept calling “CQ CQ CQ CQ CQ CQ K7NRA”, which doesn’t actually make a lot of sense. CQ generally means “calling all stations”, thus saying “CQ K7NRA” means “calling all stations with a callsign of K7NRA”; by definition there will only be one. There are exceptions to using a “directed CQ”, such as when calling “CQ DX” (looking for any DX station) or “CQ NJ” (looking for a station in New Jersey), but proper procedure when calling a particular station is to simply call the station. If I were to call that station, I’d say “K7NRA this is K2DBK” or, if K7NRA was listening for other stations, I would likely just give my callsign only.

Several other stations responded to the caller (some more politely, and some, unfortunately much less so), and he refused to move, insisting that he had “as much right to the frequency as anyone”. Unless he had an emergency (which clearly was not the case), what he said was not true. The FCC rules governing the amateur radio service state that nobody can “own” a particular frequency (including by “publishing” use of a particular frequency at a particular time), and further, if any frequency is in use, with the exception of use in an emergency, nobody is required to relinquish the frequency for another station. Thus, the caller was not only wrong, but he was violating the rule that says “No amateur operator shall willfully or maliciously interfere with or cause interference to any radio communication or signal.”

The guy would not give up, and continued to attempt to call K7NRA repeatedly. The worst of it was when one station was speaking with Bob, and was showing ham radio to a young Boy Scout for the first time. All the others stations on the frequency patiently stood by while Bob spoke with the youngster, all except the guy calling K7NRA, who simply wouldn’t stop. Several hams were telling him (in language that probably violated another part of the FCC rules) exactly what they thought of him, to no avail. While this was happening, it occurred to me what a terrible impression this was making on the young Scout. Is this how we want to entice others into our hobby?

After the contact with the scout was over, Bob, who could hear the guy calling the K7 station, finally said “The station calling CQ, this is VP8LP, please go ahead”. That did the trick, the station stopped calling. Bob called several more times with no response, and finally said “well, I guess I’ve figured out how to shut him up!” and went back to working the pileup.

I would like to say that Bob’s comment had a permanent effect, but unfortunately that was not the case. The caller kept coming back, Bob would respond to the “gentleman calling CQ”, which would usually shut him up for a while, and so on. This went on for a while, with the occasional argument back and forth between the guy calling K7 and others on the frequency, until finally propagation changed enough that he was no longer heard on the frequency.

After this was over, I did a little research to see what “special event” he was talking about, since an initial check of the spot clusters didn’t show any activity for K7NRA. After a little digging I discovered that in fact the Yavapai Amateur Radio Club was, in fact, doing a special event to celebrate the “birthday” of the NRA, as described on their website. The frequency occupied by VP8LP was also one of the frequencies advertised (21.355mHz), but what our caller failed to notice was that the event was scheduled for the 17th of November, not the 14th of November, when this all occurred. This caller was not only wrong from a legal and ethical standpoint, he managed to get a lot of people annoyed at him by trying to work an activity that wasn’t even happening. As they say, you can’t outlaw stupidity.

In contrast to my giving up the frequency for a DX station while in the middle of a “run” during a contest (as I recently mentioned), I heard a particularly bad bit of operating on last Sunday while trying to work Bob, VP8LP in the Falkland Islands. I’ve worked Bob before on several bands but needed a contact from him on 15m. He had an excellent signal and was steadily working stations, the vast majority of which were good operators, standing by when Bob was working another station and not responding when Bob wasn’t calling them. (Please see my post about The DX Code of Conduct if you haven’t already.) There was, unfortunately, one exception to the “good guys” on the frequency.

As Bob was steadily working the pile, a ham started calling K7NRA on the frequency. After he did this once or twice, assuming that perhaps he was unaware that there was another station on the frequency, I responded to him and said that the frequency was in use and gave my callsign. (The other ham was using his callsign, or what I presume was his, though I neglected to note it. While normally I don’t like to “pick on” people in a public forum, what was going on was heard by dozens of other hams, and if I could remember what it was, I’d post it here.) The other ham said “Well, there’s supposed to be a special event for K7NRA on this frequency and I’m going to call him, this is his announced frequency”.

It was pretty clear that the guy calling wasn’t hearing K7NRA, and aside from that fact that he refused to stop interfering with an active frequency, his general technique was awful. He was calling “blind” (meaning he didn’t hear the other station), and kept calling “CQ CQ CQ CQ CQ CQ K7NRA”, which doesn’t actually make a lot of sense. CQ generally means “calling all stations”, thus saying “CQ K7NRA” means “calling all stations with a callsign of K7NRA”; by definition there will only be one. There are exceptions to using a “directed CQ”, such as when calling “CQ DX” (looking for any DX station) or “CQ NJ” (looking for a station in New Jersey), but proper procedure when calling a particular station is to simply call the station. If I were to call that station, I’d say “K7NRA this is K2DBK” or, if K7NRA was listening for other stations, I would likely just give my callsign only.

Several other stations responded to the caller (some more politely, and some, unfortunately much less so), and he refused to move, insisting that he had “as much right to the frequency as anyone”. Unless he had an emergency (which clearly was not the case), what he said was not true. The FCC rules governing the amateur radio service state that nobody can “own” a particular frequency (including by “publishing” use of a particular frequency at a particular time), and further, if any frequency is in use, with the exception of use in an emergency, nobody is required to relinquish the frequency for another station. Thus, the caller was not only wrong, but he was violating the rule that says “No amateur operator shall willfully or maliciously interfere with or cause interference to any radio communication or signal.”

The guy would not give up, and continued to attempt to call K7NRA repeatedly. The worst of it was when one station was speaking with Bob, and was showing ham radio to a young Boy Scout for the first time. All the others stations on the frequency patiently stood by while Bob spoke with the youngster, all except the guy calling K7NRA, who simply wouldn’t stop. Several hams were telling him (in language that probably violated another part of the FCC rules) exactly what they thought of him, to no avail. While this was happening, it occurred to me what a terrible impression this was making on the young Scout. Is this how we want to entice others into our hobby?

After the contact with the scout was over, Bob, who could hear the guy calling the K7 station, finally said “The station calling CQ, this is VP8LP, please go ahead”. That did the trick, the station stopped calling. Bob called several more times with no response, and finally said “well, I guess I’ve figured out how to shut him up!” and went back to working the pileup.

I would like to say that Bob’s comment had a permanent effect, but unfortunately that was not the case. The caller kept coming back, Bob would respond to the “gentleman calling CQ”, which would usually shut him up for a while, and so on. This went on for a while, with the occasional argument back and forth between the guy calling K7 and others on the frequency, until finally propagation changed enough that he was no longer heard on the frequency.

After this was over, I did a little research to see what “special event” he was talking about, since an initial check of the spot clusters didn’t show any activity for K7NRA. After a little digging I discovered that in fact the Yavapai Amateur Radio Club was, in fact, doing a special event to celebrate the “birthday” of the NRA, as described on their website. The frequency occupied by VP8LP was also one of the frequencies advertised (21.355mHz), but what our caller failed to notice was that the event was scheduled for the 17th of November, not the 14th of November, when this all occurred. This caller was not only wrong from a legal and ethical standpoint, he managed to get a lot of people annoyed at him by trying to work an activity that wasn’t even happening. As they say, you can’t outlaw stupidity.

I popped up to the shack after watching some evening TV and decided to have a listen to what was happening on JT65A on 40m. I tuned my K3 to 7.076MHz and had only been listening for a couple of minutes when I saw a CQ call from VK6BN appear on the screen. I only just managed to set up a reply before the start of the transmit period and you could have knocked me down with a feather when he came back with a report! We completed the QSO in the minimum 6 minutes.

I’ve been reported in VK before using WSPR, that’s nothing unusual, but this is my first ever two-way contact with Australia on any band or mode and I’m pretty amazed to have achieved it on 40m of all bands using just 30 watts to my attic dipole. JT65A really is amazing!

As if that wasn’t enough, I then worked KE1AF for my first contact with North America on 40m. So I shall be going to bed this evening feeling pretty pleased!

I spent about 10 hours Saturday and Sunday making some contacts in the CQ WW SSB contest. This is one of the biggest contests, where the goal is to work stations, for the most part, outside of your own country. You get two points for working a station on your own continent (if you’re in North America, one point elsewhere) and three points for working stations on another continent. There are also multipliers for each different country and CQ Zone that you contact. As with other contests, your score is computed by multiplying the number of points by the multipliers. World-class competition stations typically have scores in the millions or even tens of millions for the high-power multi-operator stations. My score was quite a bit more modest, just a bit under 115,000 points. That beats my score from last year, though I’ve done better in the past. (Though I’ve also spent more time in the past.)

This isn’t one of my favorite contests specifically because it is so popular. Because it is so popular, there are almost always a lot of stations calling, which makes it harder for a small station like mine to be heard. As a result, stations that I’m hearing very well just can’t hear me, and it often took several minutes to work stations that under non-contest conditions could be very easy. In a lot of cases, I’d just give up and move on, sometimes coming back to try to work the stations again later.

Partway into the contest, I came up with a technique that made things a little less frustrating: I intentionally made my station “hard of hearing”. Normally, although I’ve got a very modest antenna (my G5RV), my radio is quite good at pulling in relatively weak stations. However, in this case, there was little point in trying to work very weak stations because they weren’t going to hear me. What I did was to turn off any pre-amplification (kind of like a “hearing aid”) for all bands, and on some bands (particularly 40m and 80m), I put in 8db or more of attenuation. (Kind of like putting in earplugs.) There were still plenty of stations to hear, and with my self-imposed handicap, I found that I was a lot more likely to work these stations.

This technique isn’t something that I’d normally recommend, but for this particular contest, it kept me from wasting time on stations that I really had no chance of working.

Here’s my score breakdown for the contest. One interesting thing is that this is one of a very few contests where I’ve actually worked stations on all six possible HF bands.

        Band    QSOs     Pts  Cty   ZN
         1.8       2       2    2    2
         3.5      22      50   17   11
           7      62     172   39   12
          14      87     223   45   18
          21      45     113   25   16
          28       8      22    7    3
       Total     226     582  135   62

 My total score was 114, 654 points, which, as always, is subject to adjustment for any errors that I (probably) made.

I spent about 10 hours Saturday and Sunday making some contacts in the CQ WW SSB contest. This is one of the biggest contests, where the goal is to work stations, for the most part, outside of your own country. You get two points for working a station on your own continent (if you’re in North America, one point elsewhere) and three points for working stations on another continent. There are also multipliers for each different country and CQ Zone that you contact. As with other contests, your score is computed by multiplying the number of points by the multipliers. World-class competition stations typically have scores in the millions or even tens of millions for the high-power multi-operator stations. My score was quite a bit more modest, just a bit under 115,000 points. That beats my score from last year, though I’ve done better in the past. (Though I’ve also spent more time in the past.)

This isn’t one of my favorite contests specifically because it is so popular. Because it is so popular, there are almost always a lot of stations calling, which makes it harder for a small station like mine to be heard. As a result, stations that I’m hearing very well just can’t hear me, and it often took several minutes to work stations that under non-contest conditions could be very easy. In a lot of cases, I’d just give up and move on, sometimes coming back to try to work the stations again later.

Partway into the contest, I came up with a technique that made things a little less frustrating: I intentionally made my station “hard of hearing”. Normally, although I’ve got a very modest antenna (my G5RV), my radio is quite good at pulling in relatively weak stations. However, in this case, there was little point in trying to work very weak stations because they weren’t going to hear me. What I did was to turn off any pre-amplification (kind of like a “hearing aid”) for all bands, and on some bands (particularly 40m and 80m), I put in 8db or more of attenuation. (Kind of like putting in earplugs.) There were still plenty of stations to hear, and with my self-imposed handicap, I found that I was a lot more likely to work these stations.

This technique isn’t something that I’d normally recommend, but for this particular contest, it kept me from wasting time on stations that I really had no chance of working.

Here’s my score breakdown for the contest. One interesting thing is that this is one of a very few contests where I’ve actually worked stations on all six possible HF bands.

        Band    QSOs     Pts  Cty   ZN
         1.8       2       2    2    2
         3.5      22      50   17   11
           7      62     172   39   12
          14      87     223   45   18
          21      45     113   25   16
          28       8      22    7    3
       Total     226     582  135   62

 My total score was 114, 654 points, which, as always, is subject to adjustment for any errors that I (probably) made.

A lot has been written recently (including by me) about the general conduct of hams on the airwaves. Over the last few days, I’ve seen something that has just been so absurd that I had to vent here. 

I’ve discussed operating in pileups before, and how it’s important to listen to the operator’s instructions to understand where they are listening. It’s frustrating when an operator doesn’t listen and calls right on top of the DX station instead of on his split frequency. While there’s really no excuse, the occasional call or two can be understood by operators who just send 5NN TU (on CW) or just “Thanks” on phone without giving the split often. The same can be said for those operators who don’t ID often.

What I cannot understand, and to me what’s totally inexcusable was the behavior that I’ve seen on RTTY in the pileups for the folks operating from the new PJ entities recently. The vast majority of operators at the DX end seem to be really top-notch operators and are doing their best to control the pileup. They leave nothing to chance when, at the end of a contact, they send something like “K2DBK TU DE PJ7E UP 2-4”. You know who the station is, and you know that they are listening for your transmission 2-4 up. In spite of this, operators repeatedly (and I don’t mean once or twice, but dozens of times) continue to call on the operators transmit frequency, not where he’s listening.

I believe in Heinlein’s Razor: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. I don’t believe that most of these operators are calling just to QRM (create noise) on the DX station. For one thing, they are all using their callsigns, so we know who they are. (There is a chance that they are using someone else’s callsign to intentionally make them look bad, but I don’t think that’s the case.) I think that either they don’t have a good enough copy on on the DX station to be able to understand that he’s listening on a different frequency, or they don’t understand what “UP” means. In the former case, they shouldn’t be calling at all. If you don’t have a good enough copy on a station to receive what they are sending, how on earth are you going to know if you’ve worked them? If it’s the latter, and you don’t know that “UP” means that the operator is working stations using split operation, then ask someone what it means, don’t just ignore it.

Incidentally, I want to mention that I’ve looked up a number of callsigns that are guilty of this behavior. There is a mix of stations, but a significant number of stations seem to be US Amateur Extra class, and, as best I can tell, they have been Extras for quite some time. This isn’t a case of “no-coders” not knowing how to operate. It may well be that RTTY, which has increased in popularity recently, is new to these operators, but like any mode you need to learn how to use it.

When in doubt, refer to the DX Code of Conduct.