Definition of a valid SOTA QSO

Every day’s a school day Colwyn. I’m now worried that I say “seven three” when in fact I should be saying “seventy three”. I may have to wipe this years SOTA logs and start again, not to mention my YouTube videos. :wink:

Cheers, Fraser

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No Fraser, it should be seven three not seventy three. But seventy three is tolerable.

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In that case I’ll take top marks. That’s until cold winter days return and I will have no control over what comes out of my mouth.

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Oh, they show up occasionally, we have a luxuriously appointed sin bin specially for them! :wink:

True, but being well into my dotage I find it easier to open a drawer, pull out the paperwork and quickly riffle through it than follow a chain of several keystrokes to the rules online. On a summit (a rare venue for me now as old age sets in more deeply) I’m happy to trust my memory - but as I helped write the current version (and the one before!) I think the essentials are deeply engraved into my grey matter! :smiley:

I lost track many years ago of what is expected of “real amateurs”, I reckon we are too much of a motley crew to categorise easily!

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Back in the lower paleozoic we used to sign off with “cheers and beers” but beer was cheaper then!

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Or in some parts “Cheers m’dears”

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Are the sun spots down again? :no_mouth:

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Nope. SN 87, SFI 100, five numbered groups, one rotating into view that may well be numbered tomorrow, and a few scattered pores that may or may not develope.

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One of the fun things about SOTA for me is that I can call CQ from a summit and then a little pile up develops. So I think this is why videos and articles talk about calling CQ rather than answering calls.

As far as the licence and exams are concerned, is there such a thing as a valid QSO? You obviously have to identify your station but there is no legal need to exchange signal reports. Perhaps when portable you should give your location (I know I could RTFL). So I don’t think we should criticise anyone for not understanding this concept - it is specific to the award or whatever that you are chasing.

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From discussion elsewhere, the definitions of a separate QSO are based on details of UK licensing rules. Those rules vary by country, so may not be obvious to us foreigners. They were a surprise to me.

Might want to define them in terms of call signs, with some examples of what does and does not count as separate contacts. So same operator, different call signs would be different contacts. Same call sign, different operators is not a different contact. Same call sign, different bands, not a separate contact.

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Yes, the Foundation Syllabus section 10A Operating says you have to demonstrate the ability to have a QSO in a number of modes (SSB, FM etc.) all of which contain the line

⦁ Two-way exchange of call sign, signal report, location.

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…and if you do qrp… you could also do seven(ty) two…

just a little less… :joy: :innocent:

Armin

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Language evolves through usage. Chill out guys!

73 derives from a nice symmetrical pattern in morse - so it could be argued that saying it in any voice mode at all is inappropriate! (Or indeed typing it on an Internet forum).

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You’re probably right Tom and I try to avoid using Morse jargon in voice modes, e.g. I would always say “my wife” not “my XYL”. Even in Morse, XYL has 12 elements ‘wife’ has 10, so why bother? However, I find myself unconsciously saying QTH and 73 and even using 73 in reflector threads.

73, Andy

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Interesting thread.
The rules state that an exchange of signal reports is a required part of a valid contact.
Many contest exchanges do not include or require a signal report in the exchange.
CQ WPX and VHF (grid square)
ARRL VHF (grid square)
NAQP (name/QTH)
NA Sprint (serial number/name/QTH)
California QSO Party (serial number/QTH)
So activator contacts made in these contests would not be acceptable for SOTA unless signal reports were also included in the exchange?

Thanks and 73,
David N6AN

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Well it does but it doesn’t! I learned my ham jargon back in the 50’s, at the height of the battle between the “Donald Duck Brigade” and the “Ancient Moaners”. Essentially it has not changed in that time, daft though some of it is. The only change in that time that I can think of is the use of QSL instead of Roger. Oh yes, and the first hams that I listened to on Top Band used their old RAF phonetics, the first ham I ever heard (I can remember his voice to this day though he is long gone) signed George three Mike Yoke Charlie. Ham lingo is very persistant, and there is nothing wrong with that, we need our traditions, we don’t need them to make sense, that isn’t what traditions are for! Anybody trying to change them is struggling against massive inertia!

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I’ve never been interested in contests so I speak as a non-expert. I wonder why most or all contest organizers don’t change their rules and drop the exchange of reports. All the contesters I hear always send 599 which makes it redundant, and since they are always in a hurry, a waste of time.

By contrast, although I’ve recently stopped recording reports in my SOTA logs, I always send realistic reports and appreciate realistic ones back especially when trying out a new antenna.

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The purpose is to exchange correctly some information hence sensible contests have something that is harder to get from elsewhere such as report and serial number along with locator for European VHF contests. There is much, much less 59/599 exchanging in these contests. Unlike HF contests where you hear a station asking for the other’s call time after time and then gives them a report “59 kilowatt”. The contesters have reduced the amount of entropy in their data by always giving the same info.

If you do have report, number and locator then you have to check that all the stations entering have the same info in the logs. The use of computerised checking makes this less effort for the organisers. In the past it would be a Herculean task to manually check the entries and it looks like popular HF contests have lost this important fact by allowing low entropy exchanges.

In SOTA, spotting gives the summit reference making it not so important in the exchange as it can be found when people look at SOTAwatch. Of course when someone spots it wrong in error and doesn’t regularly give it out and chasers can’t be bothered to check what the activator is giving and rely 100% on the spot we see the need for messages “I was spotted on the wrong hill please change your logs”.

The fundamental point is that for any kind of radio exchange to be meaningful you have to exchange data the other end can’t know. Otherwise you haven’t demonstrated you were really able to communicate. I had a marginal QSO with Brian G4ZRP on 23cms from Gummer’s How. I could hear his 10W FM signal at 51 with fading, he could hear me with his squelch defeated. But we couldn’t exchange reports, he couldn’t hear what I was giving and if we weren’t doing talkback on the phone he wouldn’t have known it was me. It wasn’t claimed by me because we couldn’t communicate on 23cms. We’ve done Gummer’s How to his QTH before on 23cms, probably the tides and thus sea heights were different on the mainly over the sea path today which is why it didn’t work.

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73s is incorrect and so is cms. Unless you were on the 23 centimetre second band.

I’ll get me coat…

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Do you have to give your SOTA location e.g G/CE-004 or is any other form of positional indicator OK ?