This afternoon, at 14:59, there was a SOTAwatch spot for F5MQW on 40m CW showing as being from F/AM-693. By all accounts, there was quite a pile-up for a “first time” activation.
Sadly, those who worked this station were the victims of a hoax. Patrick F5MQW was not on the summit, but was sitting in his shack at home, and he was extremely surprised, and disappointed, to hear his callsign being pirated in this way.
Whilst it seems to be an unfortunate fact of life these days that DXpeditions and other rare stations are often the target of malicious hoaxes, I believe that this is the first documented case involving a SOTA station. We have already had a number of reports of deliberate interference recently, so let us hope that the situation does not deteriorate further.
Meanwhile, if anybody has any information regarding the source of this hoax, please do not post it on the Reflector - either send the details to a member of the MT or to Patrick himself.
In reply to LX1NO:
i’m not saying to much on this conversation, but cw can be done by anyone that can do cw, and be a pirate, but when it comes to the phone we all recognize the voice and straight away you have 100% qso,
Steve m0sgb
In actual fact, it’s more similar than you think Steve. Some CW ops can recognise a ‘fist’ as easily as you can recognise a voice! It is more of an issue when it is a first contact, someone you don’t know, but that’s the same on phone or CW!
In reply to M0SGB:
I agree comments of Tom M1EYP.
But, I add that quick QSO (5NN TU) may abuse.
So, some quick little words permit to recognize the OM.
73, Andy F5AKL
PS: PSE, sorry for my english :-)))))
In reply to M1EYP:
We can even recognise it when using a keyer…
I think there’s a DL been pirated recently - normally nice easy QRQ CW (iambic keyer), but the day in question was very poor keying. Guess it could have been very cold on the summit, but normally we would QRS until the keying was good again…
Sadly there are idiots in all walks of life / hobbies.
73
Graham G4FUJ
Missing G(W)4OIG’s activations today :o(