Days 26, 27, 28 and a minor “DX only” rant

On day #26 I decided to have another bash on 144MHz to see if it was as successful as when I’d called a week earlier.  It took a few attempts and some beam tweaking but I had a nice chat with David, 2E0YUB up in Lincolnshire.

Day #27 was ‘cool’.  I spoke to SI9AM on 80m in Sweden followed rapidly by Hans-Peter operating a special event station, HB60LU in Switzerland to celebrate 60 years of USKA’s Club of Lucerne. More details can be seen on their qrz.com page.  What was so cool about this day?  Well SI9AM’s name is Fonz.  Aaaay!

I had four QSOs on day #28 on three different bands to four countries.  I started off on 80m working S51CK, Ivo in Slovenia, then I switched back to 2m and called CQ for a while, finally managing to have a very brief QSO with Richard, GD8EXI in the Isle of Man.  I’ve spoken to Richard quite a few times in various contests so it was nice to work him outside of the contest environment even though it was a real struggle and I lost him in the noise quickly.  After that I worked EC1KR, Jesus in Spain on 40m and then I heard Lou, IK6CWQ calling for ‘DX’ on the same band.  I turned the power down to 10w and called him, asking if he’d mind working a QRP station, he got most of my callsign except the prefix and once I clarified that he said “You’re not DX but you’re five and seven”.  I explained that I was running QRP but I’m not really sure he got it, however he’s now in my log as a contact for the day.

I can understand why some big stations who only have limited time to operate would limit themselves to working only DX but it must be really disheartening for newly licenced UK amateurs, having just passed the Foundation exam who can only run low power to tune around the bands and hearing people call “CQ outside Europe only”.  I appreciate that QRP can work well but it’s not easy.    Some nights though, I tune around the bands and I hear the same stations calling and working “DX only” for hours at a time.  I think these people should remember when they had a small station not easily capable of working outside their own continent and be a little more tolerant.

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  1. I agree, Keith. I’ve always been inclined to think that if you call CQ you should be prepared for anyone to come back to you!

    Having said that, I think if you’re working a pileup, then it’s fine to ask, say Europe to standby for a few minutes to exploit a DX opening. But I reckon it’s bad form not to give the EU guys that want to work you a chance after a couple of DX only calls!

  2. As you know I’m a new guy, and I have heard this quite a bit in the last few weeks. It is a little bit disheartening, as at this stage I just want to have QSOs, practice my operating, learn some stuff…..

    I’m very intrigued about the 2M DX though so may give that a go in 2012-13 when I can afford another radio…..

  3. Completely agree on CQ DX!

    As Tim says, it’s quite reasonable to get other callers to stand by temporarily to work a preferred geography, especially when you’re activating somewhere relatively rare. For most locations, at least one of the major population centers (US, Europe, Asia) is much less favoured propagation-wise than the other two, so spending a little time working them is perfectly valid.

    What really annoys me is people who sit there calling CQ DX for maybe 10 minutes with no replies at all, but still get upset if you go back to them when you’re not. Personally, I’d be rather grateful that someone had reassured me my antenna was still connected :-).

    Finally, the other night I heard a station calling CQ DX, and they were a DXCC I actually needed. OK, not very rare at all (Slovenia), but I’ve not been collecting DXCCs for very long, so at some point you’ve got to work them. After listening for a minute or two, he’d had no callers, so I decided a reply was reasonable. He got my partial callsign, I repeated it, at which point he evidently decided I wasn’t DX enough, and went QRT! Most irritating…

  4. The situation Tim describes is absolutely fine and perfectly acceptable but I’m hearing the same stations at least three or four evenings a week calling CQ DX and getting really grumpy if they’re called from Europeans.

    A few weeks ago I tuned past an extremely strong signal from someone sounding quite annoyed, his comments were along the lines of “I only get to use my radio for twenty minutes a week so why are all you Europeans calling me when I’m calling CQ DX to North America”. In this situation I can understand and accept his frustration but not when it’s the same stations who spend hours each night shunning their own continent.

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