CW S2S protocol?

For that reason I don’t send “AS” but “A EEE”

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Sometimes :rofl:
What happens is I send QRX QRX and if there were a few calling then there’s always one or two who send their call. I reckon they hope their call will stick in my mind when I start up again. I have observed that is less effective on Belarus and Russian stations. Go figure!

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Next time I’m going to need it I’ll try QRX AS QRX AS, to cover all of the bases.

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Uwe, DK8OA and I often go to a summit together and are always keen on a S2S.

When someone has finished his S2S, things always get exciting. The chasers mostly don’t understand that they have to wait for a second S2S. An AS after the 73 and even after a TU usually doesn’t work.

That’s why the first one of us doesn’t say goodbye and let the other one call /P straight away. That’s not very friendly, but otherwise you usually won’t get your turn. Sorry for this!

73 Chris

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A pause of less than a few minutes you should use in CW ; “AS” (sent as one character). Its meaning is quite clear and unambiguous - AS = means wait and is/was sometimes followed by 1 or 2, (minutes etc.), and is listed as such on the RSGB & ARRL website.

It was widely used in both military and commercial CW. I’ve used it when I’ve dropped my pencil on a summit or I’ve been interrupted by a member of the public. Its always worked when I’ve used it.

If it doesn’t work the 1st time then I’d do as JP3PPL does. and send “A E E E” for emphasis.

As for QRX = "I will call you again at…hours (on…khz/mhz) " Thats the ITU definition and also the definition listed on the RSGB & ARRL website. It does NOT mean wait. or standby.

Used occasionally by commercial and military .

As you can see there’s a subtle difference between AS and QRX. The former for a short pause and the later for a much longer one where you are going to call them up again. Commercial use might be after calling to arrange a telephone call (in the days when such things were done) to indicate a time and frequency where you will call on the phone etc., Never ever heard it used for a short pause. It clearly means I’m going to call you at some much later specific time .

I’m not sure a lot of CW operators know or use a lot of Q codes anyway and even fewer keep a list of them at hand.

Misusing either simply confuses the issue.

Rather than relying on the Chasers’ guess on which band I’m going to, I send the usual call ie "CQ SOTA DE M6GYU NW QSY (or QSW ) TO 7MHZ (or whatever) AR

The chasers will then know I haven’t packed up, gone home, or simply dropped dead. The latter will only happen the once !! .:upside_down_face:

Also in the Amateur Radio Contest and DX world the AS prosign is used regularly in an attempt to stop people sending when they shouldn’t be - usually when the station of interest to everybody calling (similar to in SOTA) is specifically calling a single station but the others are making it more difficult for him/her to establish solid contact and complete the QSO.

73 Phil G4OBK

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When I was a watch keeper in the Royal Navy I used to regard AS as meaning “wait (I’m calling the radio operator who knows morse)”.

I never had to use it then thankfully and am more likely to use QRS now :wink:

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I have used AS on activations and I think it has mostly had the desired effect. Although I have probably sent it badly as A followed by S rather than munged properly into a prosign. I use it in the ‘standby’ sense as mentioned by others ie ‘hang on a mo, I need to sort something out’ - antenna has collapsed, inquisitive muggles/animals, need to try and warm up my sending hand etc.

@MM0FMF would be incorrect though, as it is not being used by someone who knows what they are doing in this case! :smiley: IIRC we were taught this and other prosigns on the CW Ops course - must admit I can’t recall the others.

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Hi Josh, thanks for the ‘AS’ info. You and @WW7D may have sent it numerous times to me, but if so, it went in one ear and out the other. I’ll try to incorporate that pattern into my hearing, but give me a while - it’s new trick for an old dog.

73,
Andy, N4LAG

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Thanks all and everyone for the feedback.

Lots to absorb and apply both as W6PNG and then later in the year as M0SNA/P.

The penny has finally dropped on a practical benefit of having to append /P to a call outside of the US!!

Paul

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Its a new one on me. I’ll try it out tomorrow and see does it work :wink:

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I had to try a new “Q” code (it didn’t contain a Q though). Today 40m CW, mother of all pile ups and LOTS AND LOTS AND LOTS of people who just kept sending their calls. i.e. a few would send, then when they stopped someone else sent their call then another then another. So after about 30 secs of continuous calls I was wondering how they would hear me should I send. I mean if they are sending their calls over and over they can’t hear me can they?

I tried sending “LISTEN” a few times. No effect. So in the end I kept sending “STFU” over and over and over until they stopped. As I had QSK on the KX2 I could hear when it went quiet. I was finally able to work G4IVV who had called once and was also waiting for the mayhem to stop.

.

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:rofl:

“He didn’t just tell me to…”

Yes, he did.

I think the polite way would be “STFU PSE” :blush:

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I had to look up this (as it turns out, English language) acronym and I suspect even more non-native-English chasers wouldn’t know what it meant either. I also suspect, they stopped because they could hear some nutter keep sending something “over and over and over” not realising it was in fact the activator OR maybe they thought it was the activator but he was cracking up.

Good practise can take an experienced activator only so far. When chasers are doubling badly during a big pile-up I simply wait, 10-15s if need be, until I decode one of the callsigns. You can’t herd cats.

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For some reason I had no problem decoding it.

Quite.

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:rofl: it was bonkers. I remember thinking “I bet Andy’s cursing this lot”!

I must admit I’ve gone off chasing this last few months as I usually can’t be bothered with listening to the mayhem. Sometimes catching activators on one of the less used bands is worthwhile though.

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That’s a pity. Have you tried chasing SOTA activators on a more-civilized band, like 30m? I find that chasers are well behaved there.

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Yes, at the moment at home I only have my EFHW for 40m which my ATU will let me use albeit inefficiently on the WARC bands. One of my tasks for this year is to improve on this a bit (but more importantly, hopefully actually get out and activate again!).

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The CWOps Daily Morse Code “Scales” Sending Warm Up sheet I printed off for the course I was taking a couple of years back contains only the SK AR BT KN and BK prosigns.

Aye. Pandamonium pile-ups aren’t much fun, and sometimes they happen even on the WARC bands these days. :roll_eyes:

Tricky bit for me (on those rare occasions when I’m activating) is to catch the callsigns of chasers who call just once and wait. I’d really like to work them first…

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Yep, they’re the ones I still hear regularly on ragchews but only the last two on SOTA QSOs.

I reckon the subset of amateur radio Q-codes understood and used regularly are:
QRL QRM QRN QRO QRP QRQ QRS QRT QRV QRX (?) QRZ QSB QSK QSL QSO QSY and QTH

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