George,
Allow me to answer your questions in line: | Aren’t major efforts (those we expect to use F/H) frequencies pre-coordinated and published in advance of the trip? You would like to think so. In practice despite trying to do just that the larger expeditions just took the information I tried sending about A35JT and filed it into the circular filing cabinet – then published my proposed A35JT frequencies as their own despite being told we were going out there months before they published theirs. So you cannot rely on pre-coordination. | Do holiday-style trips really need F/H? Depends on where they go now doesn’t it? If it was a one man holiday trip to a top 40-50 most wanted destination (or even a top 100 it seems) you can very quickly overwhelm and destroy the main standard FT8 channels. Whether it is one person or 30 at the DXpedition site doesn’t matter. If the location they are operating from is rarely activated and they have more than 5-6 callers at a time trying to work them, then there is a case to move to Fox/Hound mode, one – to speed up your QSO rate and two – to prevent overwhelming the main channels. | Major dxpeditions should never operate in the standard watering holes, right? Isn’t there advice about this in the manual? The software in fact means that you cant activate FOX mode on one of the primary frequencies. We are not talking about running FOX mode on the Existing standard mode frequencies anyway. | So, why would operators looking to maximize QSO count need additional band monitoring displays? Shouldn’t they | concentrate on answering the calls headed their way? Clearing contacts would seem to be the goal, not searching a | pileup for a multiplier or rare one, right? Sorry but this looks like a question from someone who has never been on the receiving end of an expedition FOX operation. a. We are trying to maximise QSO count b. There is no band activity display currently – so if another FOX operation starts up on top of you, you really don’t know about it initially – only secondary indications start to give you a hint that there is a problem. c. The multiplier comment is also irrelevant because in FOX mode I can do that today with the controls I have for stations calling me anyway – if I want to preference someone I can without the band activity window | I grant you, DQRM or operator error can wreak havoc. Wouldn’t this show up in the fox’s completion rate and thus | raise suspicion by an experienced operator? And it does – but it takes time and an experienced operator to see their completion rate fall. Unfortunately there are multiple reasons the completion rate can fall – often caused by people using standard mode to call a FOX station repeatedly on the FOX uplink sub-channel. Direct evidence on screen that there are callers for another FOX on the same frequency as yourself would allow you to more quickly take evasive action – or better still give you pause and not start up your FOX CQ on top of someone else in the first place. | For hounds not willing to set up a profile, why? It is extremely easy and affords you the ability to enter the Dxpeditions | published frequencies, switch between them nearly instantly, and keep some semblance of order by not editing your normal | frequency list. Is there an advantage I am missing? Couldn’t agree more – do it all the time – but this is not at issue here.... Your other questions I will leave others to reply to as they are not about FOX mode operation from the FOX operator position. Regards, Grant VK5GR – Dxpedition Leader for A35JT Tonga
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