Several times today someone has activated on 14.060 and while I have been listening, hoping the signal will come up out of the QSB so that I can chase, someone else (non-SOTA) has started calling CQ ending any chance of a QSO. This frequency is so much more likely to be used by non-SOTA operators than any of the nearby frequencies.
As SOTA has a spotting system (manually or via RBNHole) we don’t need to use specific frequencies like this and they are best left for other QRP operators.
It’s always been the advice that SOTA activators should operate near the QRP COA but not right on the given frequencies. This for the reasons Richard gives and also one of accommodation and cooperation with QRP stations. It may be the case that most SOTA activators are QRP but that doesn’t apply to their chasers. By operating a few kHz above or below the COA puts SOTA activators in the right place in the bandplans and is less likely to inconvenience other QRPers.
Yes, spotting makes the absolute frequency less of an issue but even so it doesn’t take much effort to operate on 14.058 or 14.062.
The round numbers seem to me to be much more often trampled upon. Why not just head somewhere a bit away from the round decimals, at least for CW. A quick look at my raw activations field log(*) shows the following frequencies: 3.5555, 5.3545, 10.1155, 10.1175, 10.1185, 10.1195, 18.0815, 18.0875, and the exception to rub it in, 14.063 (which was for an S2S chase). Chasers seemed to find me just fine…
(*) The electronic log rounds them all to the nearest kHz because its MMS database is using an INT… ho hum…
I try to avoid the QRP COA frequencies. On the few occasions I’ve ended up calling CQ on or near the QRP COA, I’ve found that I have been called by QRP stations, which is fine in itself, but most are looking for a chat style QSO and it takes time to get through a contact with them which can annoy chasers waiting to call me. My preference is to be somewhere like 14.064MHz. I often use 7.034MHz (also recommended for GMA) and 10.124MHz (sometimes used for WWFF).
Good idea! It would be possible to squeeze three or four CW QSOs in one kHz. But quite often you can find QSOs only on .0 and .5 - nothing in between. Even QRM tends to be on round decimals, not to mention the lids who show up on a frequency CQing without having listened or asked “QRL?”
ho hum…