First of all hats off to Andrew for running probable one of the most heaviest piles up I have heard on Sota for some one not used to such levels of me me me me on air ,you did well.
BUT
Its a little moan time not at the operatorās to whom did one hell of a job dealing with the chasers coming from the Zoo. But what got my goat the most. I chased Andrew across three bands with no joy, could have been conditions not allowing my humble 10w to reach him of just no hear me due to the Zoo.
AGAIN But my point
If you have got him on one band why chase him on another its creating QRM and you can only score one summit ONCE per day. I can understand why if its challenge chasing and they appear on a challenge band and you call again fair doās. Now I would work on one band i be well happy with that. And i wonder how many people did not get through due to the sheer volume of chaser traffic also screaming at the poor guy over and over again. Just call once he will work all of us far quicker. Listen if heās talking hang too and call once again once heās done with previous station hence why i calling it a ZOO.
Now i have a radio here i could easily turned up full blast to 100w. But self restraint kicked in as allowed 10w from this station under me licence conditionās. The Zoo seemed not so restrained in there actions.
But did take advantage of the fact the zoo all screaming for Andrew, the other Sota,s that appeared were easy to work as few chasers and ended up clocking 68 points and 13 summits on 40 20 and 10m. And the Es and F2 providing some interesting working conditions too.
13k reached and over taken
M3FEH 13k Super Sloth all on 10w & bit of wire in SSB mode only
sorry for being harsh, but isnāt it completely useless to post again 'n again complaints about bad operators practices on this reflector?
As we all know, the whole world and its inhabitants are per-se evil!
But such generalizing statements, about the world as well as about bad operators practices, do not help at all. Those statements just impose a bad impression even on those that behave well. And in my opinion the well-behaving fraction is the vast majority.
And those not well-behaving people that should be addressed by such complaints do not read (or refer to themselves) the message.
Maybe it would help to introduce a new (sub-)category like āComplaintsā or āFrustrationā, then those postings could be easily filtered by those who are simply not interested.
Maybe you should also take the point of view of an activator into account. Speaking myself as an activator, if I carry up my radio equipment onto a summit than it is always a pleasure to be called on several bands and I would never call it QRM.
Nevertheless congratulations Karl to your 13k chaser points.
Hi Stephan,
It depends upon activity of course, but I like to see as many different chasers call signs in my activator log as possible. As I normally only activate on 20m & 40m SSB, the normal situation is that the stations I am called by on 20m are the more distant ones and the ones on 40m the ones closer in, so I donāt normally get āDupesā.
The number of people calling was obvious, so Iām with Karl on his point - it would have been nice for those who had already worked Andrew on another band to wait until other callers who hadnāt worked him had had their āgoā rather than effectively blocking them by repeated calling.
I know Andrew will have worked everyone he could hear but as conditions change, the weaker stations may only have the chance of a contact for part of the time that he was on air, where the stronger stations could have waited.
Congratulations on breaking the 13K barrier Karl - I remember when you shot past my chaser score about a year ago and despite worse conditions you donāt seem to have slowed dow - with almost double my score now. Persistance is the key.
Depending upon how you interpret the title - the sub-section On The Bands / Operating procedures - could be a category to highlight (percieved) bad operating practices.
Ed.
Also found out today the HBO was running 150w I believe, no wonder so many called back certainly answers a few doubts in my mind.
BUT
End of day hats off to Andrew for handling such a pile as it was quite big from what i was hearing.
And to Herbert OE9HRV, the gent to whom made it possible in first place.
Karl, an observation from VK. Last night there was no propagation from EU to VK - at least what I could hear from my familyās QTH down in VK3. As a result I used a couple of the web SDRās to listen in and heard a bit of the pileup that Andrew was experiencing on 40m.
It was not too badly behaved a pileup as they go - being quite active on the 20m LP into EU I think I am reasonably well able to comment on this! Putting aside the tuneups and whistles on frequency, it seemed to be relatively well ordered.
I agree with the other posterās comments about re-working on different bands - many want to get multiple bands for DXCC purposes. HB0 is not that common even in EU, so I imagine that people will want to get them on whatever band they can (I have them on 20/17&10m, but would love to get them on other bands). In general I will work activators on multiple bands if I am able to - as do many people. Unfortunately conditions may only make this achievable during a small window, so people will not wait to let others possibly make a contact (nor should they be expected to).
From an activatorās perspective I am quite happy to re-work on different bands. Whilst there may not necessarily be official challenges, many of us have our own personal challenges for different bands (for example Andrew VK1AD is trying to activate as many of his 2016 summits as he can on 70cm).
Not being familiar with all EU chasers, I do wonder how many of those calling Andrew are regular SOTA chasers - many could well have been regular operators trying to get HB0 for their logs or just an unusual callsign (a VK op /P in EU).
The power differential is another issue to consider - I understand that Andrew was running 150W versus your 10W, so despite you being able to hear him well, you may well have been completely in the noise of all the other callers. Indeed when I was listening on the OE based SDR I did not hear your call in the pileup - no problems hearing you when listening on the UK based SDR though, you were quite strong initially but faded badly towards the end.
Understand that it was frustrating for you not to be able to work him, but that is part of the hobby - sometimes you work them, sometimes you donāt. Earlier this year I worked South Sandwich but missed out on South Georgia - so I am probably going to have to wait another 20 years before another DXpedition activates it again. Thems the breaks!
Thatās unfortunatey true Matt - but should it be ? Perhaps a little bit too much ME, ME, ME?
From what I heard, the majority of callers were the usual SOTA chasers. I also heard Karl in there as well, so his 10w signal was definitely getting across, it was just that others were louder (and in some cases wider).
ā¦and also how signals vary during the course of the activation.
ā¦and that, too. I canāt say Iāve ever done a SOTA summit where the chaser pile-up got to the point where getting the same caller in the log more than once became a problem, though. The way HF has been recently, Iāve been glad to get any callers at all, and chasers who follow from one band and mode to the next are welcome, especially if they help by putting up spots. (I had phone coverage but no useful data coverage on Pen y Fan earlier this week, so could neither alert nor self-spot to give RBN a look in, and Iād lost the SMS gateway detailsā¦)
On a not completely unrelated topic, I heard a few years ago that visiting radio amateurs could only operate from HB0 if they had also passed a test in CW. If that was indeed the case then, is it still a requirement today?
HB0 is listed in the current CEPT TR 16-01 and therefore the same requirements apply as for any other signatory of that agreement - so the answer is no - an extra CW certification is not required.
As stated in the introduction, the requirement for Morse was removed in 2003:
The Recommendation as revised in 2003 reflects the outcome of WRC-03 concerning Article 25 of the ITU Radio Regulations. The mandatory Morse code requirement has been removed and the number of amateur classes has been reduced from two to one.
Bit of difference between South Georgia Is and HB as the SGI would take a lot for me to get throughā¦
40m was not so bad, Should have heard it on 20 and 17 it was very very busy from what i could hear and yet again canāt praise Andrew enough for way he handled it. And took advantage of fact nigh one was chasing him and picked off the others coming on air with greatness of eases to lack of chasers .
Nice to know was being heard in VK even if its via SDR LOL.
But end of day, its done dusted and thanks to all for the comments:relaxed:
As an activator, I find interesting being chased by the same station on different bands because it provides valuable information on the propagation conditions. What I donāt find interesting from a propagation condition study point of view is being chased by the same station in the same band but on different modes (CW/SSB) but itās something I enjoy as itās always very nice to be called by as many as possible.
However, I agree with you that it isnāt fair when many other stations calling to an activator for their second, third or fourth QSO with that same summit that day prevent some other chasers from getting their first and only QSO. However, Itās also impossible for the chasers to know whether the other chasers in the pile up have already worked that activator previously or not.
I understand perfectly your point and I agree that chasers trying to get their second, third or fourth contact with an activator should try to wait and do their calls towards the end of the pile up.
