I feel the same way. With the IC 703 on a piece of wire, I don’t belong to the big guns.
But I can still receive a lot.
When I see a spot from an activator that I think I can work, I turn to its frequency.
Often I hear stations in the qso and I don’t know who is the chaser and who is the activator. But that soon becomes clear. Then I hear how many chasers are calling, and I know that I don’t need to touch the microphone or the key yet.
I just keep listening.
What I then hear, however, often corresponds to Guru’s description. Chasers are calling without having heard anything. Chasers are calling at the same time as the activator is transmitting. There is a call during a qsos: qrl?..
I sometimes think, why don’t hams just listen to the frequency for a minute?
Usually you hear an other chaser, who often has more transmitting power than the activator.
Then you might notice that you can’t hear the activator itself… and maybe wait until conditions improve.
As a qrp station, I have to wait until all the stronger chasers are served and the activator calls cq or qrz? again. Then it’s my moment. Then I do my qsos as a chaser. I have never experienced that it was not worth waiting.
73 Armin
I am usually the activator… and when I hear the chaos in the loudspeaker or headphones, I often think: everyone would get to it faster if they listened more. It would save questions that only cost time.
Valid point Carl… I get the ? pretty frequently, and I always respond with my call and ‘SOTA’. About 1/2 the time whoever sent the ? will either not reply or will send another ? At that point I assume they can’t hear me and start calling CQ again.
I find the ? much less annoying than people tuning up on top of me!!!
I also agree with Pete that we have some newer SOTA ops who don’t make as much noise as they should. I’ve had the same experience, mostly while chasing S2S… if you call them, they answer but they were not calling CQ. Not sure what they are doing up there… maybe reading the SOTA Reflector on their phone while waiting for chasers to call them
Same here. I see a Spot, listen on a band that I know should have propagation based on time-of-day and distance from my QTH, hear nothing, a quick “?”, Activator identifies, I verify the Activators callsign, we exchange callsigns and reports.
Some Activators have long pauses between calls, or are maybe snacking, about to QSY, resting their voice or fingers, etc., so not calling CQ frequently.
I miss QRH in this list, which I have used sometimes in the past but I realised nobody understood what I meant. QRH means your frequency is varying and it’s a usefull code to warn a ham when his rig is not stable and is not transmitting on a given frequency, but drifting up or down.
My viewpoint is purely from a CW operator. I do not work SSB very often.
I could not agree more with the other Heinz:
I sometimes interrupt my CQ’ing for a variety of reasons, like grabbing a bite of lunch from the rucksack, chatting with passer-bys or other members of my hiking party. I quick investigative call of “QRZ?” or “SOTA?” provided I was silent for some time is understandable and not a burden for the activator.
Its often heard on phone! Still, CW terms used on phone are a whole other can of worms…
Now as a phone user and a chaser I often find myself wishing for a way to send “?” to those activators who work a whole string of stations without once sending their own callsigns or summit id, leaving me unsure whether I’m listening to a SOTA activation or some obscure contest or DXpedition station!
Tuning up on the activator’s spotted frequency is all too common and VERY annoying to me. I have done it myself by accident, but otherwise I QSY a bit before tuning up.
Perhaps thats the problem. There’s the ‘official’ ITU list of Q codes and meanings, then there’s different meanings hams give to some of the Q Codes. Guru’s post has a list of Q codes, some of which have meanings slightly altered from the ITU list of Q codes. I don’t know where it came from but even that list doesn’t match the way some of us hams use the few Q codes we do hear being used.
For example in the list of Q codes given above in Guru’s post, the meaning of QRA ? is given as, “What is the name of your station?” It doesn’t mention callsign at all.
I once used QRA? as I wanted to know the name of some special event station calling CQ and I couldn’t find it on the internet at the time. All the operator kept giving me back was his callsign. I gave up.
( incidentally, QRA? was used at sea mostly, when you were working some ship and you were unable to find the ship’s name in the two enormous books of ship callsigns.)
I often hear operators simply sending “QRZ” (with no question mark) - I assume they are asking if anyone is calling them - which should be ‘QRZ ?’ (Who is calling me?) and you would normally follow that with your callsign. IE “QRZ? de M6GYU” If you don’t send your callsign immediately after sending QRZ? how on earth can anyone know who you are?? I often hear this whilst I’m activating. I’m sorry but unless you tell me who you are I don’t know whether I’m calling you. OK, so I just simply send “de M6GYU”, mostly without an immediate response.
(PS QRZ on its own, means "You are being called by…) so would still need a callsign!)
But I agree, we are giving slightly different use/meannings to some of them. When we say QRX to someone to ask him to stop transmitting and listen instead, I think we should better say QRT, which is what we really want him to do and what that Q-code actually is for.
Regarding QRA? to ask for the ship name, that’s the use in the vessels world but it also means what’s the name of your station and, to me, that’s the station callsign with no doubt.
Ok I’m going to stick my two pennarth in. How many call CQ SOTA etc. I listen to a lot of CW QSOs often for half hour or so if the signal is loud and clear to me waiting for the CQ SOTA etc. so then I can transmit to get in, but it never comes. with an awful lot of folks.
Rant over
73 Allen
One of the problems with both cw procedure and Q codes is differences according to where, or who you look up. I have an official RSGB guide to Q codes used by hams. It only gives the official definitions - and we all, mostly know that some of the Q codes used by hams have been given slightly different meanings.
Even the Ham Radio Prep list you have put on appears to give the official definition of QRA? with no indication that it has any other meaning other than;’ What is the Name of your station?. And where do they get the idea that QSL? means “Can you receive?”. That is neither the ham meaning or the ‘official meaning’.
Its not surprising newcomers to ham make mistakes. I am probably still making them!
As in many dynamic systems, there’s a Darwinian survival of the fitted in Q codes - and amateur radio procedures in general. The ones relevant to most QSOs are sent frequently (which through repetition reinforces their use by others). The ones which apply to unusual circumstances or are ambiguous fall into disuse (like archaic words in a language). Notwithstanding the use by lone wolves of ones like QRA and QRX, nothing we say or propose on this reflector will arrest that trend.
Still, CW terms used on phone are a whole other can of worms…