Glad I wasn’t the only one to be disappointed with my pile-up on my activation of Trostan GI/AH-001. I say that with some hesitation - I don’t want to tempt the fate of being roundly ignored by chasers in future!
It was a huge pile-up, and the only time I have ever cut short without working them all. Most stations announced their callsigns once, and while it was nigh on impossible to actually read them in the pile-up, it was possible to pick out some recognisable fists, and call those stations in for the QSOs. Unfortunately, these QSOs were then severely disrupted by other stations insisting on sending their callsign a further three or four times, meaning I had to ask for repeats of reports up to 3 times, significantly slowing down the process. Repeatedly, a station other than the one I had called in answered, and then proceeded to send me reports. Each time, I single-mindedly continued with the station I was trying to work, only to hear “R R 73 TU” from the station I wasn’t working afterwards! Even my pausing to send “PSE ONLY STATION CALLED” failed to improve the situation.
Jimmy M3EYP (MI3EYP/P) was sitting alongside me waiting to go on 3.660MHz SSB for his own activation, but my CW activation was taking much longer than it should have done because of the above, and we had limited daylight left to qualify the summit, pack-up and complete the long descent. So, with continued repeating of callsigns and being answered by stations I didn’t call, I am afraid I abandoned the CW activation, and sent “SRI STORM PSE QSY 3.660 SSB”. For at that point, a very sudden and unpleasant heavy hailstorm started, and safety became an even greater priority.
I thought that there would be lots of those that were still waiting for the CW QSO going over to chase our summit on SSB, but 3.660MHz was silent, despite Jimmy’s calls. He got his contacts on 2m FM into Scotland.
I am happy to report that every other CW activation in the GI trip, both before and after this one, was conducted most properly by all chasers, making it very easy for me to quickly work the pile-ups down. Thank you for this.
I’m not sure why the Saturday evening activation on Trostan GI/AH-001 turned out so differently from the rest. If any of the CW ops that worked me on several GI summits noticed something that I did that was different for that summit, that may have contributed to this effect, please let me know. I am a newbie on CW with a great deal still to learn!
Cheers, Tom