Tell operators when they’re off frequency
Hams can sometimes be hesitant to notify others when their signal isn’t quite up to snuff or when they’re off frequency. After a recent contact, I’ve decided that I’m always going to mention this to someone that I’m in contact with.
What happened is that a station answered my CQ, but he was so far off frequency that I missed his first call. I could see him answer me on the waterfall, but he was outside my passband, which was set to 250 Hz, so I couldn’t hear him. I set my RIT so that I could hear him and sent QRZ?, and when he replied to that I picked him up just fine.
We went through the RST/QTH/name first exchanges, and on my second transmission, I mentioned that he was transmitting about 500 Hz below my frequency. When it was his turn, he thanked me for mentioning that, and said that he was wondering why CQing stations never seemed to hear him. He spent the next couple of transmissions zeroing in on my frequency. Hopefully, he’ll now be heard by stations he’s calling.
Of course, if I’d had my passband set wider, I would have heard him on his first call. That’s my bad, but he will have better success if he zero beats the station he’s calling in the first place.
Working DX on 30m during the contest
A week and a half ago, during the CQ WW CW contest, I got on 30 meters, not wishing to throw myself into the pileups on 20 meters or 40 meters. I was pleasantly surprised to find the 7P8RU DXpedition to Lesotho. And, since all the other CW ops were working the contest, they weren’t getting many takers. I was able to work them on the third call.
After working 7P8RU, I looked around a bit and happened upon the HD8R DXpedition to the Galapagos Islands. I got them on the first call! I already had HD8 in the log, but 7P8 is a new one for me.
Repeater crawl
They guys here in Southeast Michigan do an amusing thing called the Repeater Crawl. On the first Friday of every month, a group of operators congregate on the General Motors repeater on 443.075 MHz (123Hz PL), which has the best coverage of any repeater in the Detroit area and then set out to see how many of the other repeaters the folks in the group can hit.
I happened to be in the shack with my VHF/UHF radio on when they turned their antennas towards Ann Arbor. I was hoping that they’d call for local checkins, but was disappointed when they did not.
In any event, I think that this is a great activity. If you live in an area with several repeaters, you should consider setting up a “crawl” where you live.
250 Hz bandwidth when you are casting a CQ to see if you can snare someone (unless you are sandwiched in between a bunch of stations during a contest) , strikes me as a bit too narrow. In any event, I find it less stressful to listen by default with a 400 Hz bandwidth or sometimes even wider., if the band’s not too busy.
During contests, it’s actually helpful to NOT zero-beat the CQing station, cause that’s where all the OTHER guys will be calling. If your radio has an XIT (transmitter incremental tuning), it can be helpful to set it plus or minus a few tens of hertz or even a bit more, so that your signal will stand out from the madding crowd.
A lot of newcomers (or even oldsters) trying out some of the new QRP CW kits may find they don’t necessarily transmit where you think they are, compared to where the receiver is listening. For instance, the QRPLabs QCX series of CW transceivers use 700 Hz as their passband center (and thus their receiver offset), which is a different offset than many other radios.
My Elecraft rigs, by default use 600 Hz, but at least they are adjustable. So, I’ve set my Elecraft rigs to 700 Hz, so I hear the same musical tone when tuned into a station whether I’m on an Elecraft or a QRPLabs radio.
The Elecrafts (and some other radios) sport a ‘SPOT’ function, that will zero-beat a signal for you when you push the button. Never had anything like that before, but I came to like it a LOT, since I tend to be a bit tone-deaf when it comes to trying to figure out what tone corresponds to zero-beat.
Can’t say I’ve ever been too annoyed by off-frequency CW stations, but SSB stations that can’t seem to zero-beat DO annoy me, particularly in a net. Then I’m chasing them around with the RIT control.
Of course, your mileage may vary.
You’re absolutely right that 250 Hz is too narrow when calling CQ. I keep telling myself that I’m going to set the passband wider when calling, then narrower after I’ve made contact, but of course, I usually forget. Having said that, I just set it to 800 Hz and am calling CQ right now.
I occasionally participate in the Wayne County Repeater Crawl, and I really enjoy it. Matt, WS8U, is a frequent participant in the crawl as well. I was on last night’s crawl, and the same thing happened to me.
I was unable to hit the WW8GM repeater from Dexter, so I joined on the next repeater that they went to. However, I wasn’t able to hit many of the repeaters following that one, and they skipped me when I was finally able to hear them. I decided to ID right when they said they’d QSY back to the WW8GM repeater from the Novi repeater (which was almost full scale), and they acknowledged me.
I might participate from the UMARC station one of these Fridays!