> I can hear many many stations but hardly any of them can hear me. The most likely reason for this is operator inexperience, which is a perennial problem on Field Day. It's great that lots of people who don't usually get on the air, get on the air... but the side effect of this is a lot of really poor operating habits.
The biggest problem this year, in my opinion, was not identifying at the end of each contact. Many ops who were running on a frequency simply would acknowledge receipt of the exchange, then just stop transmitting and listen for the next caller. Here's an example: W4---: CQ Field Day, this is W4---. W3--: This is W3--. W4---: W3--, I'm 2A Georgia. W3--: Thanks, I'm 4A Western Pennsylvania. W4---: Got your 4A Western Pennsylvania. Good luck in Field Day! <sound of another guy calling the W4> See the problem? This would sometimes continue for 5, 6, or 7 contacts, with the W4 never sending his own call. So, be me for a minute: there I am, waiting to call the W4, except I don't know he's a W4 because he hasn't said so, and neither has anybody else. After the first 20 or 30 times this happened, I stopped waiting around for these stations to finally identify themselves. Once, when this happened for about 6 contacts while I waited around to work a strong station in Georgia who refused to identify, I became frustrated and transmitted, "Hey, Old Man, you need to ID after each contact!" The guy immediately came back, "Let me tell you, young man, that we're all Extra class operators here who finish in the Top 10 every year, so you're not going to lecture me on how I should operate!" I went to CW after this and found the operating to be a lot better. I still heard the problem I just described, but not as frequently as on phone. Another common malpractice was people who were calling CQ, and who would receive a response to their CQ, but then would tell the caller to send his exchange first. This isn't the way you do it. The CQing station always sends its exchange first, then turns it over to the calling station, so that the CQing station can acknowledge receipt, identify, and stand by for another caller. I feel like we go over this after every Field Day, and nothing has ever changed. I feel like Get Off My Lawn Guy right now. If you're in a club that's planning a Field Day operation, you need to take the April or May club meeting and help people practice the Field Day exchange protocol with mock QSOs. It's getting really bad on the phone bands during Field Day. (I didn't mean to subtract from your enjoyment of your new K4. I hope it turns out to be a great rig for you for many years.) Regards, Al W6LX ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html Message delivered to arch...@mail-archive.com
