Contests, Haters and QRM

The greatest thing about this wonderful hobby of ours, is the diversity of it.  If you are into emergency communications, good.  If you are into chewing the rag with friends near or far, good.  If you are into tinkering with electronics, radio direction finding, satellites, etc. that's great also.  Alternatively, if you are not into some aspect of ham radio, that is also great.  There is so much to the hobby, that you are bound to find some aspect of it that suits your fancy.

For me, I like emergency communications.  I like making contacts with QRP stations and I like tinkering with electronics.  These are fun for me and they are the aspects I missed most when I was off-air.  The most fun I have, however, is contesting.  Sure, there are some that don't like it because of any number of reasons (including the oft cited claim that contesting isn't staying true to the hobby) but they are allowed to not like it and are free to express their dislike of it, but there is a time and a place for it.

I have spent many, many hours listening to these hams complaining up on 40m, 75m and 160m.  These stations are usually the ones that meet on the air each evening, rag chewing for several hours at 800W power or more and get bent out of shape if anyone outside of their clique dare to try to join their discussion.  New hams learn the hard way that even though the laws say that no one OWNS a particular frequency, there are certain places one dare not tread unless you have the output power and can stomach being told you are a sub-par ham because you became licensed under the no-code rules or you cannot copy code at 30wpm.  As far as I am concerned, these hams, unfortunately, have placed themselves in the same category as a certain crazy Canadian (and his US ilk) that hangs out around 14.313MHz, especially after this weekend's NAQP.  Let me explain how I have come to this conclusion.

There were a few contest stations that were staying put on one frequency on 40m for several hours.  When it came time for these contest-haters to have their daily sked and they found that someone was parked on their usual frequency, instead of scanning around for an open frequency (or canceling their rag chew session for one evening) they deliberately tuned up on to of the original station, started talking over the original station (saying, "The Frequency IS in use" as if they were there first) and just other deliberate forms of harassment.  Then, not only were they doing this on their normal meetup frequency, they started traveling the band QRMing everyone, everywhere on 40m.  One even brazenly set down a dead key and turned the VFO slowly so as to maximize his performance and damage.

It isn't like these contests pop up at the last minute.  The information about the dates, times and bands are well published ahead of time in places like QST or at the WA7BNM/honicopia website, so there is plenty of time to steer clear of the contests or make other plans.  There are certain contests I don't really get into and that is what I do - I get away from the bands or away from the rig altogether for the duration of the contest.

I am sure that these same OMs will be at it again during Field Day and every other big contest in the future - unless they come to their senses and figure out that the contests aren't going away anytime soon.

73's and hope to catch you on the bands.

My First Experience On HF

Getting my Tech license was a thrill and earning my General was awesome, but nothing beats actually getting on the HF bands and living what amateur radio is all about - well, there is one thing better (so far as I have witnessed), but I will hit that point in a few moments.

Dropping down below 2 meters (144MHz) is pretty neat.  You hear stations from all over talking about this and that.  This morning, on my way to work, I heard a station in Oklahoma doing a little rag-chewing with a station in Missouri.  The signals were so strong and so clear that if I hadn't known that I was on 40 meters (7MHz), I would have sworn they were on our local 2 meter repeater.  Had there have been a break in their conversation, I would have called out there to them and tried to get my first QSO.  As it was, I was getting pretty close to being late, so I had to shut down the rig and go into the office.

When I got off of work tonight, I immediately headed up to a higher point than where my work is.  Work sits in a valley, but there are plenty of hills around here.  Finding one that has a farm road on it and no buildings close is a bit difficult, but not impossible, so I headed up north of work to a more hilly area, found a spot to safely pull off of the road and started tuning the dial around 20 meters.

I was listening to strong stations in FL, SC, TX, and GA coming in loud and clear - a good S9.  As I was tuning around, I heard a station that, honestly, caused me to get pretty excited and I witnessed my first non-contesting pileup - one station answering and 30+ stations calling.  Everyone was trying to get a QSO with station J7WTA on the Dominica Island - a rare.

J7WTA was coming in about 5/7 and so I thought I would try and make my first QSO even more special.  After trying my luck to reach out to this Caribbean nation for nearly 30 minutes, I gave up.  He was just about the same signal as the QRM (noise) and fading.  Missed my first foreign QSO but it was fun trying to get it and listening to all the stations that were likewise trying to make contact.  There are some happy hams as far away as Los Angeles and Phoenix that were able to eek out enough power to get over the top and catch a rare QSO. 

So, I will get back to trying to get my first HF QSO.  Who knows where the other station will be?  Here in the States?  Canada? or will I be lucky enough to have a QSO with a small foreign country somewhere out there?

73's