Has it occurred to anybody that the rogue tuner-upper might actually be intending to work somebody else entirely, and has considerately moved aside a few kHz from their frequency only to land on the QRP station by chance?
This advice to move away to tune is all very well, but whereever you go there is a good chance that you will cause QRM to somebody somewhere.
Martyn M1MAJ
You may well be correct, Martyn, but the onus is still on the tuner-upper to listen before transmitting.
“I listened and heard nothing so I tuned up. I couldn’t hear the weak QRP field station especially as until my tuner is peaked my system is quite deaf.”
I’ll bet that some of them would trot out that entirely spurious excuse! The receive side is far less sensitive to a mis-match.
“I am using a magloop, unless you are bang on with the tuning you hear almost nothing.”
I’ve never tried a magloop so I guess I would give a pass on that one. Any more? 
“I have an S8 noise level and can’t hear QRP stations.”
Dicey. If the propagation is there a QRP station will sound like a QRO station.
I have an AlexLoop magLoop and the adjustment is very sensitive. The instructions say not to use an ATU with it and tune the capacitor manually for maximum signal or noise on the desired frequency. So magloopers should be silently tuning up.
For the first time yesterday witnessed some QRM/D on 60m. In the old days anyone tuning up for that length of time would have melted the anode. The signal was so strong that applying the notch filter resulted in the wanted signal disappearing. I completed the QSO ( just ) and carried on listening. The QRM stopped as soon as the activation finished and then the frequency was quiet for the next hour. Frustrating. but didn’t share my frustration on air.
I have used mag loop antennas and that’s esactly true, but once you have tuned the capacitor for max noise on RX, it’s recommendable to transmit for the final tuning if you want to get perfect 1:1 SWR, which is what I always aim to.
But I do exactly the same when tuning with a conventional antenna tuner. First select the inductance tab giving max RX noise and then move the Transmitter and Antenna variable capacitors for maximum RX noise. Then and only then, a brief transmission for a quick final tuning of the variable capacitors until 1:1 SWR is reached. This is usually something that shouldn’t take longer than a few seconds (less than 5s) and can also be done by series of very brief transmissions (about 1s each).
Longer transmissions presumed to be for tuning are either delivered QRM or poor ham operator skills.
The automatic antenna tuners usually find the matching point within less than 5s.
73,
Guru
Extrange coincidence. However, how the operator tuning on top of the activator could have known that the activator was gone if he was all time tuning, thus not receiving what it was going on on that frequency?
I know this might have been done with the use of a SDR but that sounds to me as something really evil… I guess even this is possible, though.
73,
Guru
From having had plenty of practice doing this.
Andy is perfectly right. This was deliberate QRM and has been happening for some years now. It appears to be a Brit that seems to have an issue with SOTA and specialises in trying to interfere with activations. I have never heard him getting his jollies by QRMing non-SOTA contacts.
But he’ll be reading about it on here and looking to do better next time.
Sorry, I had made the assumption that anyone who was trying to deliberatly cause QRM to stop a SOTA activation would probably not spend their time reading the reflector, but as I dont understand the mysterious workings of a mind that would choose to cause QRM then I’m probably not the best to judge. Mind you my family don’t quite understand the workings of a mind that walks up a hill because its there but specifically if it only has a 150m prominence, carries and operates radio gear from the summit ( “Why don’t you just use phone Dad?” ) and gets particularly excited when talking to someone else doing the same. Anyway to the station who needed to tune up I would suggest trying the same from a summit and then attempting either modulation or cw…