Just a quick heads up - being one of the RSGB Board Directors, I would like to support the RSGB/IARU and use the following special call sign from the summit of Creag Thoraraidh GM/NS-133 tomorrow, Friday 25th April:
GB0IARU
I aim to be on summit for 13:00 UTC, and I will operate on the following bands/modes:
7-CW/SSB, 14-SSB, 18-SSB, 28-SSB and 145-FM
If anyone would like to work this special call sign in there log, please have a listen out for me. It will be great to work as many stations as possible
There must have been more than one GB0IARU on the air the time you were on GM/NS-133 and later as I worked the callsign backscatter on 28031 at 12:59. I won’t count it as a SOTA QSO. There are several RBN spots on SOTAWATCH for what I thought was you on various bands, for a good few hours today!
I worked GB0IARU at 12:39 on 14.0317 CW thinking it was Ben on GM/NS-133. Now that it has been confirmed that 14-CW was not used on that summit, I won’t upload the QSO as a SOTA contact.
I worked GB0IARU at 09:39 on 7.164 operated by Gordon (G3PXT) during a non SOTA activation (UKBOTA).
Seems something may have gone wrong with the allocation/usage of the callsign in the afternoon.
The 21MHz contacts submitted as chases actually worked me at a POTA 3-fer, although they wouldn’t know because I wasn’t spotted on 15m on POTA - a couple of them are regular hunters - and the log has already gone in for that.
Ben had booked his slots, I had booked mine on 21MHz (pretty good conditions too!), and G3ZAY was the 10MHz op referred to. The system for booking the call is on a band slot basis, not mode exclusive. The RBN just sees the call and does the rest.
It’s one of the problems of these shared special calls. There can be many stations on at the same time and unless the chaser is clued up to this fact then confusion WILL occur. More so on CW contacts when the exchange is minimal. Even if the ref was sent every QSO it would only confirm SOTA for those who heard the ref being sent. People who worked someone else without hearing a ref may log the QSO anyway.
Chasers should check against Ben’s log and delete QSOs if not in Ben’s log. I’ll do this anyway in a few weeks time when everyone has uploaded logs etc.
When I used the call on SSB, ‘I’ was spotted on sotawatch on another band by RBNHole (another operator was using the call on CW).
I stopped this happening on future activations by adding RBNN to the comment on my alert.
These things happen. We have fun, there is some confusion, we have to figure out what really happened afterwards, we learn to try to stop confusion in future, we have to clean up the mess. But we still had fun Well others did, I was not available as it would have been a complete for me as well.
Well others did, I was not available as it would have been a complete for me as well. 