As an SSB man myself, I do sympathise, Karl, but activators do it their way. Most of what you are seeing is the doldrums that usually set in before the winter bonus commences, activity should buck up in a weekās time!
Many of us, me included, have learned CW purely because of SOTA. Itās a natural mode to use because it lends itself to portable operating in so many ways. Hey, if you think this is addictive, wait until you start doing SOTA CW!
25% of spots for the last 48hrs were SSB. I didnāt count the FM spots. CW spots are machine generated so always outnumber manual spots. There doesnāt seem to be anything different about those figures compared to the normal split between CW & SSB.
Just the normal variability in activations and spots sometimes means thereās a clean sweep of CW or SSB on the main SOTAwatch page. The real trick (especially with SSB chasing) is to watch the alerts, and see whether you can catch an activation before the spots appear.
Oh my God, here we go again Grrrrā¦
How many times might people complain about CW activators? May we also complain about FM or VHF activations too?
I would want to remark that sometimes, CW activators make also SSB or FM activity too. Is this true also in the inverse cases?
I think that the question to be appreciated might be the effort of that crazy people hiking the summits, and not whether they make HF,VHF,SSB,FM,CW or others⦠Donāt thank them! They must do it better, and if strong enough, carrying a 45Ah battery and 100w rig! I donāt want that ones with small signals⦠And , why not! I want to make the QSO in my own language, why just english?
Sorry about this, but it is sad to read posts like this every 3/4 months
The beauty of cw is that just by learning a few q codes and procedure it can act as a lingua franca for everyone regardless of their native language. If we all stick to voice most of us in the English speaking world are more than happy at the moment because English is also a very popular linqua franca for most Europeans. However, we may have to switch to another language one day, I had better start learning Mandarin!
To be honest, I rather admire those that go out in bitter cold or very windy conditions and send legible morse code, its a very tactile mode, and there must be a trick to using it when you are shivering with cold or being buffeted by wind, and wearing thick gloves. Last time I went up the Old Man of Coniston in winter conditions there was sheet ice all over the place (the descent was an adventure in itself!) and even wearing good thermal gloves my hand went numb operating the mike. I could not imagine sending morse code in such cold conditions!
Admire them though I do, I donāt suppose I will join them. As the old advert said, āItās good to talk!ā
Hi Karl,
nice to meet you on 20m SSB on two of my three recent activations. I am a cw man, so consider yourself luckyš. I have a mike with me on all activations, just many times there is no time or weather is not good enough for me to stay longer on a summit. And I am usually under time preassure, as I have to be home at 2pm latest.
Keep on good chasing, you will be at 1k soon!
Hope to meet u many more times.
73, Mirko S52CU
Not knocking the C/W operators at all far am concerned there clever in what they do Just shame one canāt do it as yet.
And wot did i tell you
Go out do MOT on car and three appear LOL
Typical in it
Never mind just go drown ones sorrow in a cuppa
But end of day all big respect to those that climb this hills mountain to provide us with wot were all obsessed with in what Mode there using and giving up time to active the summits for ever grateful
know what they say if canāt beat them join them will do it one day
ā¦it is beautiful. Sadly Nick thereās none so blind as those that canāt see. Worse than those that canāt see are those that wont see. So we get the ad nauseum repeat of āthereās too many CW spotsā.
I canāt do X. There is too much X. I shall moan there is not enough Y. Do Y for me because I canāt do X.
Well Iām sorry, if you canāt do X then you donāt get to complain about too many people doing X and expect your complaint to be taken seriously. Those that can but donāt want to, well their comments are worthy of consideration.
Good on yer Karl! Thatās EXACTLY why I did it too. There was just too much of SOTA I was missing out on, both from the activator and chaser perspectives, and I wanted a slice of that action too.
Best thing is you can then activate with a radio half the size of a FT817, an aerial made from four bits of wire and some coax. The whole lot weighs less than a flask of soup, but still drags in all the DX from all continents. More fun than you would ever imagine!
Sorry to hear about the motor. That time is coming up shortly for me too. I hate and dread it.
Its TANSTAAFL unless you begin it with āTāAINāTā!
Whether there are too many CW spots or not, there is no obligation to use any mode, and long may it remain so. Itās a pity that a post that I saw as essentially humorous should get such unhumorous replies. Keep it light, guys, it is nowhere near being worth a rant.