A. when it’s idle chit chat and requests on SOTAWATCH Spotting page.
If there’s one thing that irritates me its people who request changes of frequencies by spotting an activator on a new QRG with a comment along the lines of “Can you do 20m/SSB too?”
For those of us who have the compressed view of spots, we don’t always see the remarks and I’ve lost count of the number of times, as a chaser, I’ve dialled into the spotted frequency to hear others sending ? QRZ SOTA etc., so I’m not alone in misinterpreting these non spots!
As an activator, I have neither the time or the inclination to look at my own spots, that’s assuming I even have a mobile signal in the first place. Any one requesting anything of me via sotawatch is whistling in the wind. At the end of an activation I have a tune around the band looking for any S2S opportunities and, if I have a signal, I’ll maybe check if there are any potential spots posted. Once again I won’t be looking at my own spots!
Perhaps someone would like to set up a live chat channel where the primary use is for real time requests and info. This would keep the spotting pages for spots and clear of QRM…
Good point Pete. I do not monitor the comments in spots during any of my activations either, I tend to be rather too engrossed in other things at the time! Messages do come through to me about these sorts of things though. Recently I have received mid-activation messages advising of a potential S2S for me on the same band - these have arrived via CW (from GM0OAA IIRC) and via text message (from MM0FMF IIRC).
I suspect that on air, or via SMS would work for most activators, to get a message/request through, but via the comments line in a “non-spot” is probably not an efficient method. Plus the extra negative that it winds Pete up! Or is that considered a bonus…?
I think it can be very helpful as a feedback loop to an activator.
As regarding you using a spot to determine where you listen then you could be regarded as a lost soul.
Preferred frequencies are useful but to rely on spots is not good.
Also think of people who cannot operate on certain bands. Obvious one here in the UK is 5Mhz - what is wrong with a request by an M3 or M6 to consider another band. The activator is always in control. They are requests to consider if you have the access to the spots.
I think your post is arrogant and dreadful.
How you call it QRM I do not know. The normal page holds 5 entries which scroll away.
Spotting is a victim of its own success Pete. We try to maintain a balance between valuable spots and noise. Normally it needs little moderating and it’s done very softly, softly. Asking questions in a spot comment like “is he doing 2m SSB?” is not a problem if the frequency and mode spotted is the same as the last spot. The new spot wont cause people like you to tune up and find nobody there and it wont cause other spots to disappear off the screen as the collapsed comments code takes care of that. So I have few issues with spots done that way.
It also depends on the volume of spots which aren’t spots. The odd one isn’t really a problem as long as it’s done like above. The real issue is whether the message gets to the activator. Maybe it does. But I don’t monitor SOTAwatch from a summit. So unless someone asks me the question in the spot it wont get to me. A few chasers will quiz me on my activation plans and will include that info in the spot. Mark G0VOF is good like that, he’ll ask me which bands and modes I plan based on what I now know at the summit. This may often differ from my alert due to say frozen ground or bad WX etc. He’ll precis that info in the spot which will often remove the need for questions in the comments.
Of course questions in spots are not as infuriating as spots of 2m activations saying 145.500 of 144.300 as you know the activator is not going to be working the activation on those frequencies!
Andy
MM0FMF
(Imbibing a Bellhaven Twisted Thistle IPA after a remarkably success-less day in the office.)
Pete’s point is that these request spots can be, and often are, confusing. They’ve certainly caught me out a few times, leaving me spitting blood at the mis-use.
Are people still using the old “normal page”? The compressed view, crafted for us after many requests and many occasions when even the full page view didn’t show all the active spots, shows 10 activations with multiple spots stacked on one line, and the full page view shows a lot more than that, both with colour coding for time. What is the point of people putting in hours of work to make big improvements to the efficiency of our facilities if people are going to stick with the old, inefficient facilities? Rant over!
I don’t think the problem here is that people use the comments section to post requests for possible QSY frequencies, but that they post spots for the frequency /mode they would like the activator to try without realizing the confusion this can cause.
As a chaser, I choose to have the full view of the spots page, including any comments & have seen requests for a particular band / mode in the comments. If I can hear the activator, I will assist the relevant chaser when I can by asking the activator at an appropriate time if such a QSY would be possible,sometimes it is, & sometimes it isn’t. Personally, this has been most often when an activator is working on a band that certain licence holders are not entitled to use, (ie 5MHz in the UK) & if I see a spot from an intermediate or foundation licence holder asking if (eg 40m SSB) is possible I will relay this to the activator. This has always worked fine & there is no reason it should not continue that way.
However…
The most important thing is that the details in the spot are for the frequency & mode the activator is actually using at that time, & not where you would like them to try next. For those with the compressed view of Sotawatch, or those taking a feed of spots from elsewhere, they will only see the spotted frequency / mode (without comments) which as Pete quite rightly points out will lead to no end of confusion.
not as infuriating as spots of 2m activations saying 145.500 of 144.300…
I do that. I do that when setting up for a 2m activation and wishing to self-spot myself to alert chasers I will shortly be on VHF. At that stage I do not know what my working frequency is going to be - but I do know that my initial call will be on the calling channel…
I’m not a fan of using spots to convey messages or requests, but if it MUST be done, then I would say that it should be standard practice to spot the current used frequency/mode, not the desired one. I’ll explain…
Some years ago, some problems built up with non-spots, so the Spots page view (which for most people probably contains around 75 spots, as opposed to 5) got badly cluttered with comments like “Nothing heard in IO83” and band/mode requests. Improved self-discipline from users of the system, as well as the compact view have reduced this issue greatly. However, in the compact view, it is only the most recent spot of an activation that appears, with the rest compressed away in the “mouseover” box.
So if you spot a non-spot that is really a frequency request, and you enter that desired frequency in the spot submission, then the ONLY spot now seen for that activation is the LATEST one, which has an incorrect frequency appended to it!
Hence only the existing frequency should be entered, the desired one should appear nowhere other than in the comments line. But as I said previously, I suspect there is a very low probability that an activator would read such a request mid-activation anyway.
Hello Brian, I think the key thing is what Andy said. To put the ‘original’ detail, that is, the same as the last spot…or obscure it “will QSY to 7Mhz” etc
I think I might go and watch a bit of Comic Relief…oops not here, on the TV. I am trying to think of the Army expression of sent to Coventry but it escapes me now.
The comment from Pete:
"I’ve dialled into the spotted frequency to hear others sending? QRZ SOTA etc., so I’m not alone in misinterpreting these non spots! " A classic.
Today I heard people calling for Christian as DL/OE5HCE/P - he had a faulty radio and could not transmit but people were bleating their call as though they could hear him.
I think it can be very helpful as a feedback loop to an activator.
No, the purpose of a spot is so that chasers know where the activator is, both geographically and freq/mode. Most activators never look at the spots while activating.
As regarding you using a spot to determine where you listen then you
could be regarded as a lost soul.
That is wrong, it’s the exact reason that spots (and the DX cluster) were invented.
Preferred frequencies are useful but to rely on spots is not good.
Again, you seem to have missed the point. A spot is an actual signal report by a chaser of an activators signal.
Chasers are certainly very keen Mike. The best I heard was a Central European chaser “working” Jimmy 2O0EYP/P (as he was last summer), giving out a report and saying “Thank you for the contact”. This all took place shortly after the spot had appeared for 20m SSB, but shortly before Jimmy started transmitting!
I found it hilarious, but ISTR Jimmy was far from amused at the time!
If the spot asking an Activtor to QSY is on the frequency the Activator is currently working, then it’s not a problem for me. Others mileage may vary.
If an activator is activating a unique that a chaser has been chasing for a couple of years, I can well understand that chasers frustration.
For two years, I’ve been chasing GW/NW-031 Esgeiriau Gwynion and Barry MW0IML came up trumps yesteday. Quite frankly, I would have happily walked barefoot, over broken glass drenched in sulphuric acid for an S2S with this one.
Hello Tom, I hope you do try 29 FM sometime. We would have been crossed polar but worth a a go. I have a tale to tell about people working phantom stations. If you email me. I am now getting nagged so after you see the full stop. Not that one, the next, I am gone.
Quite frankly, I would have happily walked barefoot, over broken glass drenched in sulphuric acid for an S2S with this one.
And I would have paid good money to watch that!
I hope you do try 29 FM sometime.
I intended that both yesterday and today (and indeed alerted for it, and 28 SSB), but on both occasions I was running late and had only done 28 CW by the time my self-imposed (necessary) QRT time arrived.
I think it can be very helpful as a feedback loop to an activator.
Comments in spots provide NO feedback whatsoever to me as an activator because:
a. 70% of the time I don’t have a mobile signal.
b. I use the compressed view which means comments are not visible.
c. I would only check to look for a possible S2S.
d. If I do have a signal I normally turn the phone off anyway to stop the blasted thing chattering away in my headphones.
e. I’m activating, spots are for chasers!
The way to give feedback is to contact me on the radio, that’s the only sure fire way! I have had tip-offs of S2S that way which I’m always grateful for.
I always alert before an activation, the frequencies and modes posted are the ones I’ll attempt to operate on the day. Anything else is impossible.
I think your post is arrogant and dreadful.
What, for expressing an opinion?
Well we’ll have to agree to differ.
"I’ve dialled into the spotted frequency to hear others sending? QRZ
SOTA etc., so I’m not alone in misinterpreting these non spots! " A
classic.
Why? Isn’t that what people do? See a station spotted and tune to the frequency in the spot.
What do you suggest we do otherwise?
See a spot for 7032 and tune to 14060 and search in vain for an elusive signal?
Today I heard people calling for Christian as DL/OE5HCE/P - he had a faulty >radio and could not transmit but people were bleating their call as though >they could hear him.
Which goes back to where I started. A non spot! It’s an impressive feat getting spotted with a broken TX!
Please re-read the thread again, I think a few of us understand your post & indeed agree with the main cause of the problem.
I wouldn’t want this topic to go the way of others where people have let feelings get in the way of rational discussion as it does highlight an important issue, certainly with the ever increasing number of associations, which will include chasers who may not be as familiar with Sotawatch as we are in the UK.
As a Chaser there are a number of GW/NW summits that I have not yet worked - some of them because most activations have been only on bands/modes were a contact is only ever going to be possible in the event of there being extremely good conditions (i.e 2m FM), so to me a ‘non-spot’ asking if the activator can try another band/mode that I know they have used before is the only chance I have of getting that summit in the log.
Having said that I can recall only one occasion in the last year or so when I have actually used a ‘non-spot’ with a question regarding a possible QSY and that was last weekend in the hope that someone would ask Bill GW4WSB to try 2m SSB (he was on 2m FM) and yes I placed my ‘non-spot’ with a different frequency to the original one (actually not a full freq), but removed it a little later when I twigged that it could have caused confusion.
Hopefully we all learn something from such mistakes and will try not to make the same one again!
As an Activator I am unlikely to look at the spots page or post my own spot, simply because it takes much too long for me to enter the correct details on a mobile phone (I really hate trying to send an SMS - a quick voice call is much easier).
"…>Today I heard people calling for Christian as DL/OE5HCE/P - he had a faulty >radio and could not transmit but people were bleating their call as though >they could hear him.
Which goes back to where I started. A non spot! It’s an impressive feat getting spotted with a broken TX!"
Christian spotted himself before he discovered he had no tx.
