Thanks. I’ve emailed Alex following your suggestion
Honestly, I see little interest in having this feature. Copying callsigns correctly in one go is the key thing to master pileup management.
I activated this afternoon EA2/NV-092 on 30m and one of my chasers gave me a 597 report.
I never write signal reports down on my log, but such unusual 597 report is something to remember. TBH, I don’t remember what a tone 7 means, but neither my chaser I guess…
If you get to master pileup managing by copying any callsigns in one go, you won’t have by that time any problem to copy a signal report.
Keep on practising with Morse runner and you’ll soon be there. It’s a really great program.
73,
Guru
1 Like
I agree completely – it’s the most important thing to master.
Guru, with all respect, here we disagree. For you with your many years of contesting and SOTA, it’s no problem. But many of us are still trying to master those multitasking skills - i.e. copying his/her RST and S2S summit ref. with QRN, QRM and wind noise whilst finishing writing the time & callsign in the log, stopping the paddles from falling away, etc, etc, lying under a tarp in freezing weather - could do with practising in a relaxing no-pressure situation. The more ‘SOTA realistic’ the better.
In any case, unlike you I like to log both RSTs,
73 Andy
P.S. I’m trying to use MR in ‘pileup’ mode at least once a day
1 Like
H Guru,
Your 597 report is a good one.
One of my “prized” reports is 157, I think that was it. I have no idea how it was a valid contact if my signal was unreadable, medium strength and slightly raspy tone. Yet on the next contact all reports were normal. I know some kinds of reflected signals (aurora) on a UHF or microwave signal can be fairly difficult to copy, but I don’t think 40m signals are normally affected by rain scatter or aurora, not at 35 degrees south.
I agree with you regarding practice at copying the usual callsigns. When you are called by a non-sota operator, none of that practice is any use if your recognition dictionary is limited to a specific set of operators.
The best practice is contesting, preferably international contests.
73 Andrew VK1DA/VK2UH
A quick Google search and here it is:
I doubt my morse tone had a trace of ripple modulation, but I’ll have to check that out.
OK, I also have to deal with all those inconvenients when activating (e.g. QRN, QRM, wind noise, shivering, numb fingers, other walkers asking questions, etc) but I have probably forgotten how was my morse code learning curve. I always have a word of recognition to the brave operators who are starting up on morse and having the courage of facing a pileup. When I started on CW back in 1985, all my QSOs were standard ragchewing QSO in the comfort of my shack.
Now, 35 years later, copying callsigns and other exchanges in morse code has become so natural that I can hardly believe now how difficult it was my first CW QSO and how many times I needed to hear a callsign being sent QRQ to fully copy it. Even in my first contests, I worked a station in S&P and then I had to remain on his frequency while he was working other contesters, just to hear his callsing the necessary number of times to be sure that I had it 100% correct.
Making ragchewing QSOs was a very good practice for me. The classic 599 73 TU exchange is far too easy and it doesn’t represent much of a challenge to our brain. Ragchewing QSOs, particularly when done in a foreign language like the English is for me, represent a real challenge and a great exercise to our brain.
In these days, there are great tools like the Morse runner program helping a lot to practise and improve quickly. If you do MR in pileup mode once a day, I’m sure you’ll be at a real good level very soon. However, let me recommend you not to use the restricted version with SOTA participants only and do it with any callsign. That will let you copy equally easy a RZ9, a 8P6, a 5R5, VU2 or a DL7 callsign.
Good luck!
73,
Guru
2 Likes
Indeed!
That’s a weird report indeed. I wonder if those are reports given by CBers. I remember from my times in CB back in 1981-1983 that the signal reports were given S9 R5 instead of the 59 we normally say.
Sometimes I’ve got a 95 report and I understand it as a 59 given by a CBer ham.
Perhaps your “prized” report 157 actually pretended to be a 517. Well, I’m just guessing, who knows…
I hope everything is OK over there with you, Andrew.
Take care.
73,
Guru
Replied privately…
While at it, I now also added SOTANames.xdt that can be used directly by “Saisie SOTA”.
If adding other formats would help, let me know.
Hello Christophe
Thanks very much for the SOTA names list spreadsheet a very useful addition and much appreciated.
73
Nick
1 Like
Okay will do. I also have the Ham Morse app [on my iPhone and iPad] which has a ‘calls’ mode sending a continuous stream of worldwide callsigns. That’s helping too. It also has a ‘News Broadcast’ mode [e.g. BBC News] which is news in brief, and a ‘QSOs’ mode.
I’ve used Morse Runner [Windows v. 1.68] about ten times now and I’m finding almost all the ‘received’ stations are sending much slower than me. Does anyone else have this problem?
My sending speed is set at 20wpm. I’m using ‘pile-up’ mode with Activity set to 3. Most of the stations are in the 12-15wpm range and only rarely do I get one in the 18-20wpm range.
I’ve read the manual and searched online but can’t see any way to increase the rx’ing speed.