I felt sorry for Dave G4ASA/P who is operating now from G/TW-005 on 10.114 MHz CW.
Operators are calling Dave at 25-30 WPM (Dave was operating at a steady 18 WPM).
Several operators were making long calls over the top of the station Dave was working so the station being worked could not hear that Dave was coming back to them. Certain stations were REPEATEDELY calling Dave when he was going back to a partial callsign and IMI. These were not the occasional errors that we all sometimes make, it was persistent.
Activators should not have to suffer this appalling operating, it is ruining SOTA.
I am sorry to say that I have to agree with and it is becoming recently clear that there is a consistent theme to recent posts about operating practice. I am a keen chaser and enjoy sitting on 7028 and hearing a SOTA call. I enjoy and appreciate the goodwill, the cost and physical demands to climb these peaks no matter how large or small to provide the means to enjoy a SOTA contact. I have sadly found myself ‘put off’ by the almost aggressive persistence that some operators have akin to contesting (where it may be more appropriate and acceptable?). However SOTA, as has been previously mentioned is not contesting. What I have taken to doing is letting the initial charge die down and some calmness prevails then when I can distinguish the activator from the chasers try a call with my K1 on 5W. The feeling of achievement when I am successful persists and this for me is the essence of SOTA. I understand the excitement and desire to get that callsign (and the SOTA points) but I think that we could, collectively, find a way where we can avoid the nullifying effect of what is happening now. Patience, mutual respect and care may be one solution. I have enjoyed SOTA since its inception and appreciate the excellent work that is put in to maintain it. I would hate to see any deterioration or loss of SOTA’s inherent ethos.
Respectfully,
Ian G4WTF
Phil, I would be obliged if you could PEM me with the callsigns of the persistently disruptive stations that you heard. I am monitoring activations on SSB and listing the worst offenders to try and get an idea of just how bad the situation is and how frequently certain stations offend. Unfortunately my ability with morse code is at best marginal so I cannot gather data on the CW activations.
To some extent SOTA is a victim of its own success. We hear some truly appalling operating in the pile-ups for DX-peditions, although the DX is going to be there for days or weeks, but in the case of SOTA the undisciplined Chasers know that their quarry is only going to be there for minutes or hours at the most and act accordingly to gain the points at any cost.
I don’t want to act as a “ham radio policeman” but as I do often spend time in my shack with the radio on doing other work I will list the CW operators callsigns who repeatedly offend and send you the details and explain what I believe they are doing wrong, when they did it and who the activator was that they were trying to work. It’s not possible to do this when you are activating a summit as you’ve too much else to think about.
The one thing about the big DXpeditions is they work split frequency and as things have got so bad that is what I intend to for SOTA from now on should this happen to me, if I go split I can ignore the wreckers and then the majority of operators who are first class, will be able to hear me going back to them hopefully.
I was right annoyed today. My 1st QSO was on 15m with a W4 station. Despite sending “W4? kn” a European station (who is very close to being outed in public by me and if I do that he wont be going in my log for a long, long time) kept sending his call. He did it 4 times before being told “xxNxx NIL” and that stopped him. Now when I worked this European later he gave me 599 so there was no way he did not hear me specifically request W4 only.
If it happens next week then I will put his call here on SOTAwatch for all to see.
The one thing about the big DXpeditions is they work split frequency
and as things have got so bad that is what I intend to for SOTA from
now on should this happen to me, if I go split I can ignore the
wreckers and then the majority of operators who are first class, will
be able to hear me going back to them hopefully.
Hi Phil!
I have to say I do not favour the use of split frequency operation for SOTA. The trouble with this type of operating is that it occupies more than one frequency. At its worst, it can occupy a chunk of the band several kHz wide. It can be very annoying to other band users who may be in QSO on adjoining frequencies, because your callers will often trample all over existing QSOs without listening first. Where there are two or three SOTA activations between, say, 7032 and 7034 kHz, a station operating “split” will cause all other SOTA activations on the band to be wiped out by QRM from his chasers! Not a good idea.
i am a non-cw-operator but i had almost the same problems on different activations in ssb.
first of all i would like to point out that most of the sota-chasers have great “ham spirit” and “do listen” also
but there is a small group of chasers who continue to call, call, call … and definitely do not listen what i say or who i call!!!
the problem for me as an activator is how to behave in that situation: i once tried to ignore these persons during an activation, but that caused a lot of additional qrm (good, loud signal) and made it harder for me to copy the other chasers.
that is why on the last activations i decided to work these qrm-chasers as quickly as possible and then concentrate on the others. but let me say that i’m not really satisfied with that solution …
maybe some other activators can tell us/me how they handle that problem???
In reply to G3NYY:
hello Walt,
as an activator working split for me does NOT mean that I transmit “QRZ up” but that I switch my FT-817 to SPLIT and call the chasers 50 - 200 Hz up or
down my transmission.
With to many callers I otherwise might have to call the chaser with
the longest or most persistent calling.
