This. This a million times.
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Email all those JA and W calls who responded to your TI? and ask them to explain why they did that. You will get all kinds of weak excuses the main being “I couldn’t hear you properly” which is bad.
But none of them will say “I operate like this because I believe I am more important than the other chasers who were calling you.” or " I have learnt I can bully my way to the front of the queue this way and don’t have to wait". But this is really what is happening when people deliberately ignore instructions.
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Pete,
I whole heartedly agree with all of your comments…
Old cloth ears
David
G0EVV
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Operating Split 1-2 KHz up would be better some of the time, like today. WE have Art HB9CEV/P operating from HB/SG-039 this Monday morning, a very proficient operater going at 25-26 WPM. It’s taken Art around 45 minutes to almost clear the 40m pile up. It took me 40 minutes calling on and off to work him with my 200 watts and decent 40m antenna.
The F&F crowd were in there which always makes it much harder to get through. Operating split would prevent the long callers and the wrong time callers blocking the QSO partner that Art is calling, if he were to work split he would be able to work the pile up down more efficiently. If a few callers don’t pick up the UP when its sent there are only usually one or two and they generally realise what’s going on and join the rest calling up. So when necessary I advocate working split and listening up around 1 KHz on CW. The pile up is now drying up - well done to Art clearing it. It took 53 minutes - Art must have a couple of pages of QSOs by now, every credit to him working it down to nothing.
73 Phil
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Hi Guru,
There is a problem in your schematic with regard to reality.
Your schematic does say the chasers should call after the activator has sent CQ or QRZ.
The enormous majority of activators do not send CQ or QRZ after end of each QSO.
Reality is, and that is working: chasers should call after activator ends previous QSO with 73 tu …
However the chasers should pay attention to the fingerprint of the activator, which is some activators give own call after every qso which is losing time.
So if as a chaser you hear that the activator gives after every qso his own call do not start to send after 73 tu … wait until after he repeated his call.
If it is an activator who gives his own call only occasionally you can send after 73 tu …
Something else: if an activator calls a station twice with complete call and the chaser does not respond one might consider to send his own call.
If an activator calls a station with lets say only prefix and ?? all others who do not have the same prefix should keep quite. If you have the exact same prefix you might send your call 1 time and listen if he was calling you or someone else with the same prefix.
73
Patrick ON4BCA
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Hi Patrick,
I know my schematic may look too extensive as almost none of the activators calls QRZ? or CQ after every single QSO, but sometimes they do (I do) and I wanted to have the schematic covering this possibility.
As I mentionned in a later post,
The chasers have to listen to the modus operandi of the activator in order to learn what’s the activator signal for the pileup to start calling. Some activators send their callsign, some others like me just send 73 TU, but not receiving calls after a final 73 TU will make me send a QRZ? If no calls again after my QRZ?, I will call CQ.
All of this is something for the pileup to listen and they should quickly learn and adapt to each of the activators preferences.
As I explained later in another post, my usual QSOs involve just 3 overs:
I missed your calls during my last recent activations, but it’s true that one had heavy RF field QRM and the other one had WPG QRM, so possibly I couldn’t copy your QRP calls because of this. I hope to be soon in a pleasant quiet summit, so I can copy comfortably every little signal calling.
73,
Guru
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great advice and wizdom Guru. Thanks
Geoff vk3sq
Hi Guru,
May be useful to add an S2S have priority. Amazing how many ops jump over the S2S qso.
Just a question to help me understand. Yesterday on SotaWatch there was an activator who stated on his spot he was doing 14wpm. Lots of folk were calling him at at least 20wpm maybe more. Now I learned off you basically Guru but I am at a loss here should I not have sent at 14wpm or what please ?
best 73 Allen
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Indeed, amazing and sad. Many seem not to care at all for those activators on top of a probably cold summit, with his QRP and wire antenna trying to work a S2S. Those activators which are offering all those summits and giving us so much fun with their activations. It’s pure selfishness, the same we all see everyday everywhere. Very sad indeed…
But this is not always the case. There are still very nice chasers letting the activator know that another activator is calling for S2S.
I hope the others will soon learn how to proceed in these cases giving priority to the S2S. I know there are more and more activations and more S2S contacts, but this is not an excuse to ignore them.
Whenever an activator calls for S2S, the chasers should stand-by giving chance and priority to the S2S contacts. In case there are many chasers not standing by, we should draw the activators attention to let him know about the S2S calling. This should help the S2S QSO to happen and should show the others the right way. The more often this is done, the more chasers will learn to give priority to S2S.
73,
Guru
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Hi Allen,
I think you did very right sending at his same 14 WPM.
I usually activate at 20-21 WPM although I’m able to transmit and receive faster. I do it at that speed because I think it’s very adequate, slow enough to let beginners copy me well, at least those beginners going at speeds around 14-16 WPM and fast enough to make possible a 1 or 2 QSOs/minute rate.
When I’m chasing from home, I try to adapt my speed to that of the activator, although it’s true that sometimes I call faster to some very good CW operators because I know they can copy well at that higher speed. Calling them faster reduces the QSO time, which is good for the rest of the chasers in the pileup as well as for the activator.
When I hear a beginner going really slow, I always reduce my speed to his level and offer as much help as I can for the successful QSO completion.
73,
Guru
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Thanks Guru appreciated, I think maybe the speeds got too much for him yesterday as he went qrt
That may be so for CW but I think it is less common on phone, as a chaser on phone I refuse to call unless I hear a QRZ or CQ, knowing that I will be unable to hear some or many of the other chasers due to skip.
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Hi,
Totally agree, despite the SOLO PSE S2S, many chassers keep calling. It also seems selfish to me, when a summit calls S2S, that the chassers from their comfortable shack call and overmodulate the call of the mountain goat that finds itself in an uncomfortable situation.
I think that to be a chasser you first have to go through a period of a mountain goat, perhaps in this way the activators would be respected.
73
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Well said, Amy! It has been written here many times but there are still only few chasers who have implemented this procedure. It’s so much easier to pick a call sign with an offset of, say +/- 100 Hz. They don’t have to be loud because their signal sticks out.
73, Roman
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All this is fine advice, but doesn’t take into account the QSB monster. I know from talking to my chasers that sometimes I am Q5 copy and then… gone.
I still want them to try and chase me, even if it doesn’t go smoothly and in perfect rhythm.
Another country (if only occasionally) heard from,
Eric KG6MZS
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I agree that QSB makes us chasers make mistakes. I make them, we all or most of us make them, but this is something we all can understand, I think. One mistake from time to time is normal.
But I consider unacceptable the systematic calling at the wrong time of the breakers shouting their callsign on top of a QSO in progress and those impatient chasers calling at the end of the chaser over, inexplicably on top of the final over of the activator they are pretending to chase, not letting the chaser hear the activator’s final confirmation and farewell or any possible question/comment he may have for his chaser.
I find these two practices extremely unpolite and annoying. That of the breakers may some time be by mistake caused by QSB, but it’s clearly intentional in many other cases. That of the chasers calling at the end of the chaser’s over and on top of the activator’s final transmission is due to ignorance and bad operating skills.
I hope this thread will contribute to make some of these aware of their wrong operating practices and will finally help them correct their “mistakes”.
73,
Guru
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I certainly hope so as well, Guru. I find that for my own equanimity it’s better for me to assume that these are honest mistakes. I’ve certainly made my share of those 
73 Eric KG6MZS
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HI Guru,
Great to work you SSB the other day!!
I got about 2/3rds down this thread before realising you were referring to CW QSOs so I can now understand your frustration better. On my recent SSB activations I have started off near 14.285 (UK QRP Centre of Activity) on the assumption that other activators & chasers will also be running low power so I am very surprised when an Op running 1kw answers my call and obliterates the QRP s2s that I would sometimes prefer to QSO with. I would prefer it if chasers would reduce their power and give it a try but I realise that’s unlikely to happen.
73 Lea M0XPO
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Even though I run QRP on SOTA activations I avoid using the exact QRP COA but try to move at least 1kHz away. This is so that the QRP frequency is free for others especially since the chasers are likely to be QRO. [I usually only do CW but the principle applies equally to SSB].