Dear all,
As most of you already know, I’m currently living in a rental appartment in Pamplona city and I setup a remote station to be able to benefit of the low noise environment and the good antennas I have in a rural QTH I own in a small village just 18Km SW of the city.
This means all my RX and TX currently rely on the internet signal traveling back and forth between my Remoterig interfaces installed in both QTHs.
In these lockdown days, with so many people confined all day at home, the internet is under very big demand. Only in our home appartment there are 5 of us and all or most of us are always with at least one smartphone, laptop or PlayStation connected and exchanging lots of data through the internet.
All this traffic is having a huge impact on the quality of my remote station RX and TX signal and I want to apologize to all chasers if they hear my transmissions being partly cut out or briefly and momentarily interrupted. I have noticed some chasers having problems to copy my call when I’m chasing and I know it’s because of this. That’s also why I’m having to repeat my callsign much more than I’d wish to. Sometimes more than 3 repeats of my callsign have been necessary. I’m really sorry for this and I want to apologize activators and chasers for seeming a bit like a LID… It’s embarrasing for me and I feel really sorry, but chasing SOTA is my main entertaining activity in these moments of lockdown and trying to successfuly finish my battle against cancer and I wouldn’t like to stop doing it because of this.
Let me just repeat my apologies and bear, please, with me the difficulties of this Covid-19 crisis times, which are also affecting to my SOTA chasing performance.
Thank you for your comprehension.
73,
@EA2IF you sounded great in California on my last activation… SOTA DX is the best DX & hearing a call a few times helps confirm my CW ear Thanks Guru, hope to get you in the log again soon! (N0OI and I are headed out to the desert this weekend and will plan on an early morning activation for propagation to Europe).
Hi Guru,
I’d be very happy if propagation allowed a contact with you. I like the callsign and report to be repeated if there is any impediment to easy copy.
If a station calls me.and is not strong he has to accept his report sent two or three times. QSB is the enemy. I missed a contact yesterday as every time my report was sent the signal faded. I won’t ask for repeats more than twice. It is very sensible IMO to repeat the important info when you know the circuit is not solid.
no issues with latency whatsoever during our last QSOs.
It is good to understand that there is a technical reason. But in my opinion dealing with QRN, QSB and (sometimes) QSD is part of the game. I’d never complain as long as it isn’t deliberate QRM.
Hi Roman,
Chases in the morning are usually OK, as my wife and kids are not making use of the internet. The big problems come in the afternoon, when all of us at home and many other people out there start watching TV series on their laptops, or having video-calls with friends/family or watching Youtube or like my son playing PS4 online with his friends. I remember having big problems on RX and TX when I chased Leo @NE2P last Saturday on 20m CW. But he was patient enough, as well as all the other chasers in the pileup and the QSO was finally good, for which I was very grateful.
I’m now listening on 7.032 while my xyl is out at work and my kids are slowly waking up and about to having their breakfast and everything is working perfect with my remote station. The afternoon will probably be tougher…
Thanks for the activations and the QSOs, Roman.
I’ll be looking forward to chasing you again soon.
73,
Thanks Guru, hope to get you in the log again soon! (N0OI and I are headed out to the desert this weekend and will plan on an early morning activation for propagation to Europe).