Tip: Don’t call QRL? with your narrow filters on
The other day, a guy got on and called QRL? very near the frequency I was on. I couldn’t really hear him because I had selected a pretty narrow filter, and I bet he couldn’t hear me responding to that call with a “C” to tell him that, yes, the frequency was in use, because almost immediately he started calling CQ.
So, you might ask, what’s the problem? Even though you both were relatively close in frequency, you apparently weren’t interfering with one another. That’s true, but the station that I was in contact with might not be so fortunate to have such great DSP filtering. In that case, the guy would be interfering with my transmissions.
Another thing that you might ask is how did you know the station was even there in the first place. Well, I could see him on my IC-7300’s bandscope. I’m guessing that the other guy didn’t have a bandscope, but did have some very sharp filters.
What’s the solution? Don’t use very narrow filters when calling QRL? If you do, you won’t hear stations that really are too close to you.
A multitude of modes
The other day I first made a contact on Ann Arbor’s newest DMR repeater, then wandered down to the shack to make a few CW contacts. I eked out one or two, but band conditions being what they are, I instead switched over to JS8CALL and typed out a few. After doing that, I thought to myself, “How cool. I was just able to use the oldest mode in amateur radio and two of the newest.” Let’s make use of all our modes.
What’s in a name?
Yesterday, I got an order for an Extra Class study guide from a guy with an appropriate name: Jay Ham. No one will be able to say that this guy isn’t a “real” ham.
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