My name’s Paul and I don’t know how to do split operation. I don’t think I’ll ever had to use it but I know I was unsure of the protocol so simply listened to some of the more extreme DX events that took place this year.
The bottom line is that you do the best you can given the circumstances at hand. It sounds as if you did just that. Sadly there will usually be some chasers that you won’t hear. Not your fault. Propagation is a fickle mistress and is not obligated to conform to your situation.
de W6LEN / Jess
We’ve found recently that even calling for specific stations only doesn’t work, so for example saying ‘F4?’ or ‘G0?’ only, still results in a handful of unrelated callsigns replying. We just try to work them all as quickly and fairly as we can, with me often writing a few callsigns at once for Nic to then contact in order.
I have certainly had mixed results with this. It seems that EU stations have been more likely to respond to my call “out of turn” but I assumed it was the nature of my weak signal making its way across the Atlantic. I typically assume ops have good intentions, and this is the most reasonable explanation to me. It could be impatience or entitlement but why let negative assumptions get to me? At the end of the day it’s just dits and dahs.
What does confuse me is when I copy a couple strong domestic callsigns at once and jot them both down. I respond to the slightly louder station first because I want to clear them from the pileup, but the second station gives up the ghost never to return. Mind you, both have good signals when I am able to do this, so it’s not as though I just can’t hear the reply.
This happened 4 times during my last outing, and I’m sure the ops abandoned the pileup out of frustration or boredom but they were right there! Mind you, my last 3 activations were all 15mins or less due to cold temps and blowing winds so it’s not as though they were languishing in the queue for half an hour. I wish they would stick around just a bit longer. I will likely no longer attempt the second copied callsign, as it seems to be fruitless at best. At worst, it is causing confusion for my chasers.
Sadly it’s just plain old bad operating. It has become much worse over the last 20 years or so. It is totally counterproductive because slows everything down and it is just plain stupid. I am embarrassed that so many of us European ops are so bad at this.
The only way to deal with it is to absolutely refuse to work any out-of-turn callers and never let go of the station you are calling until the QSO is in the log.
It happens a lot. People are impatient and seem to have very limited attention span (another reason for the out-of-turn calling). They may come back and try again later but if not then that is their loss and there is precisely nothing you can do about it.
I don’t try to control the chasers by requesting QRP only, or S2S only, or a particular country callsign prefix only. It wastes time and - as others have said - some chasers ignore the request anyway. Better just to work through the current callers as quickly as possible. Despite using the Morserunner app at home to help train my ear/brain resolve overlapping callsigns, I find it very testing so just work the first callsign I can made out from the crowd - often focusing my mind on his pitch and speed to screen out the others.
If I can get a partial callsign and send it with a “?”, most other chasers will back off, and if a rude one doesn’t, I resend [partial callsign]? kn until the correct chaser is allowed in.
That’s true and proving the old maxim, you can’t please all of the people all of the time.
I get a chuckle when I later see they logged the chase. Which does seem to happen with regularity. Must have been a tough copy
Hi all,
May I thank all of the people who have taken the time to respond to my discussion document. I think it has been a useful exercise.
I have now completed 476 Activations and made 17,505 QSOs. That works out at an average of 36 per activation, I am currently 28 points away from MG2.
I have found that the Chasers are almost always well mannered and considerate to the other chasers. It is rare for me to have “busted calls”.
As I said, I do not support the use of Split working on Sota (where the DX station transmits on one frequency and listens within a band of frequencies perhaps 10kHz away and changes his receive frequency each QSO.) That said, spread listening, over ± 500Hz may be justified on very busy pileups.
So as an experiment I will try the following on a busy pileup:
Occasionally hold the pileup to listen for QRP stations (which should include most S2S calls.) This may also help by giving the chase a bit of structure.
Try spread receiving, no more that ±250Hz from transmit frequency. If I am operating that way I will transmit “spread”.
Chasers, please avoid zero beating with my transmit frequency, be adventurous and tune off slightly.
Perhaps we can return to this topic in a few months.
David
Conditions play a big part in how successful my chasing is. That’s just part of the game. Catch a few, miss, most likely, more than a few, especially if the band is being edgy. I’m always aware that the activator also has conditions to deal with, and may just not be hearing me for all sorts of reasons. (Last activation I did, dogs, walkers, rain and wind were some of the causes of distractions that likely led to me missing a chaser or six.)
During the 60 years I operated from DX locations, I had luck asking for stations ending alpha only, then bravo, then charlie, etc. Better than call areas
Elliott, K6EL
I always try to continue my activation until I’ve worked everyone I can hear BUT, particularly in the winter, if I start to get too cold, I start to lose the light or the weather closes in, I will apologise and bail when I feel the need.
As to technique, I will pick whole calls, partial calls or even just the odd letter I might hear and then request that ONLY the station(s) matching that call again. It works for me.
It certainly sounds as though you did all you could to work everyone who wanted a QSO so you really shouldn’t feel bad about it. Just like trying to chase that elusive DXCC, IOTA or whatever, there will always be people who try and fail to make the contact they want, for whatever reason. Rather than complaining online, their time would be better spent improving their station and/or their operating technique. Sorry if that sounds harsh but there are no guarantees in this hobby.
A few further observations here if I may:
At least on CW, split operation is usually 1-2kHz, not 10kHz. There is no need for more unless the operation is from a super rare one like P5. Starting at 1kHz offset has the advantage that key clicks from overdriven linears are less likely to cause QRM on the DX frequency. It’s also easy to send “Up 1” so folks know where to call. An split range of +1 to +2kHz is ideal but smaller is better if conditions and pileup permit.
I would commend not listening ± your frequency and instead just work one side or the other. This will help to prevent chasers transmitting on your exact frequency. The convention is to work HF - this is what chasers will expect. There is no need to send “spread”, especially for such a small offset. Some chasers will adapt, others not, so the spread will happen naturally. If you’re only moving 500Hz then you will always be within most chasers’ filter passband.
It’ll be much less frustrating for your chasers if you progress through your chosen tuning range in a systematic fashion, so those that are paying attention can adapt to your tuning pattern. The convention is to progress up to the limit of the frequency range you want to use, then restart again at the lowest frequency, like a sawtooth.
These are tricks that I have learned in almost 60 years of HF CW DXing, on both ends of the pileup. Whilst few SOTA activations would need such a high level of pileup management, I suggest that these long-established methods work well and can usefully form part of a SOTA activator’s tool bag for when the pileup gets bigger and time on the summit is limited.
In a CW, the most important thing you need to learn is the meaning of “UP” being sent by the bandpolice
Important, yes, but not as important as learning the meaning of “UP” being sent by the DX, so that the band police are out of a job
G3WGV wrote: “At least on CW, split operation is usually 1-2kHz, not 10kHz.”
That approach is what worked for me from Brunei, I found “up 1” was a good approach and most of my callers were smart operators and understood immediately. I was using a TS430S then and its 270 hz filter was useful in tuning through the jungle of callers and there certainly were some who watched what I was doing and anticipated where I would tune next. On ssb the practice of selective calls using a letter rather than a call area also was a good tactic. In Asia the bulk of operators are the JAs who are universally polite and obey requests, really a pleasure to deal with. But the majority are in call area 1 (Tokyo) so call areas are not a fair way to use selective calls. On 6m I had only an ssb bandwidth (on cw) so cw was a real challenge (ts600). My impression is that now, 35 years later, there are fewer operators obeying dx requests, more people calling over the dx just to try to discourage other callers. Dx = activators…
73 Andrew VK1DA/VK2DA
Japanese operators are still very good and almost never call out of turn. Sometimes too good: miss a single dit in their callsign and nothing heard! When I’m on DXpeditions in the Pacific the immense JA pileups are a pleasure to work and very high QSO rates can be achieved. Often the path from the Pacific to the EU is straight over JA and, of course, JA callers are so much stronger than EU. No problem: call for EU only and you won’t hear a peep out of JA.
Europe, sadly is not so good, notably southern and eastern EU. It really is a mystery to me why this rude, inconsiderate and utterly counterproductive style of operating has caught on. It’s only a minority of operators that do it but it doesn’t half slow things down.
I was out at the picnic bench on the sports field near my house trying to chase Richard G4TGJ/P on G/NP-006. I did work Richard on 30m so I swapped my QRP MTR-2B over to 20m to see what was happening on that band.
My antenna is a lightweight inverted vee dipole on a 4m pole pushed through the umbrella hole in the picnic bench.
My MTR-2B doesn’t do split but it does have 1.5kHz of RIT. I saw a DX Cluster spot for V31CN, a one operator holiday expedition to Manta Island off the coast of Belize. Mike was working split, sending UP after his call. Just for a laugh I called a few times after using RIT to tune down to his TX frequency and I actually worked him! Manta Island is about 5000 miles away. My QTH is at around 85 metres above sea level in the bottom of the Wenning valley.
A very rare occasion that I use split.
Hi David, @G0EVV
Lot of your call/P in my hunter log and thanks for that
Like Phil say and like him I will not write this murderous spot…
Continue your activations as you want and above all as you can, there will always be dissatisfied people !
I contacted a quarter of my uniques summits with an antenna at the edge of my window (6m of vertical wires and a 9/1 transformer) 2watts and when I was a little embarrassed I increased it to 5 watts (You can verify my words, my call in 2010 was F5JKK/QRP ! Even if it displeases some)
A method of hunting that could be beneficial for everyone
But we live in a world of selfishness and human stupidity (5w on a summit VS 2kw sitting comfortably warm), the result can lead to this kind of spot that you experienced.
Don’t worry and treat yourself to QRP.
73 & respects
Eric F5JKK
younger 66.5, one heart attack and two metal hips
Unfortunately there are also a few UK operators who have bigger mouths than ears.
This is a great discussion and a lot of good points have been made. For me, the pile up is something that I enjoy and embrace. Pulling out the weak ones is also important and that might require requests for repeats to get the call copied correctly. Most of the pileups that I have encountered last maybe 20 or so minutes, so I don’t feel stressed as you may have been. You are commended for hanging in there so long, especially with uncomfortable operating conditions. My approach is to get through the pileup as quickly as I can, so I keep my exchanges as concise as possible. My normal pileup response is: " WX9XX gm 5xx 5xx BK" and then “73 de K8FB” (not “UR RST 5XX 5XX” and then," tnx CA 73 de K8FB"). Also, when someone ends by responding with a “BK”, starting your own response with “BK” adds nothing to the exchange and is wasted energy, in my opinion. It’s all about saving time where it makes sense. Getting through the pileup as quickly as you can is the best solution to the issue. Even then, you need to be sensitive to those operators who are sending slowly and require a similar slower response. When you are not encountering a pileup then you can have a more relaxed exchange. Bottom line, pileups are fun and part of the allure of a SOTA activation.
I’ve been experimenting with different QSO formats lately to figure out which one feels the best to my rhythmically. I believe the biggest step towards efficiency is consistency in the QSO format more than whether or not the op uses prosigns or abbreviations. If the operator is consistent, the chasers tend to mirror that (though not universal). At least that’s my observation as a CW op in the infancy of 9 months experience.