I encountered an interesting situation when chasing European summits today (24 Oct). First of all, it seemed like the pile-ups on summit stations were more unruly than normal. But that’s another issue.
When I checked the spotted frequency (28.390) for G3TQQ/p around 1400z, I heard a British voice, but surprisingly loud for a SOTA activator signal. Turns out it was another English station, M0CSI. And he was inundated with quite a pile-up of SOTA chasers, apparently assuming he was on a summit - he wasn’t - and several worked him. I’m guessing they will log the contact as G3TQQ/p - it wasn’t. Unfortunately, I still haven’t heard Dave this morning.
Just a good reminder for all of us to listen a little more and make sure the station we’re calling is who we think they are (or want them to be).
I’ve had that happen to me on a few rare and exotic GM summits. Chasers end up chasing each other on my frequency and not having a QSO with me. Happens more with SSB than CW in my experience but I think that is because many CW chasers recognise my often poor sending when cold/stressed etc and know which signal is me and which is someone sat in the warm
I’ve witnessed this sort of thing on CW. It can happen when a SOTA station goes QRT or QSYs to another band and the frequency is taken over by a non-SOTA station, often immediately as if they’ve been waiting to take over the frequency.
Yeah. Always good to announce those events from the summit. Won’t stop the over-enthusiastic non-listeners from having phantom QSOs, but will at least give a hint to potential chasers who are listening…
Okay, I’m glad I’m not the only one—it’s reassuring. I wonder if some chasers might have hearing issues. For instance, when you ask them to repeat their callsign, and they don’t but instead give you a 59 and disappear… or when they think they’re having a QSO with you while you’re actually talking to someone else. It reminds me of communicating with my dad, who is half-deaf
I had a related problem earlier this year when chasing another activator for S2S. A DX station called me while were finishing our S2S QSO on the other activator’s frequency. A strange experience and I didn’t answer nor stick around to try and explain anything on CW. My guess is my call was picked up somehow in RBN for the other frequency, which I have seen happen a few times before.
I’ve seen RBN spot other calls on my frequency before now, too. I suspect RBN is sometimes not sufficiently selective, and will spot a call when all its skimmers have heard is 'DE call '.
