Keith,
If there is no major pileup it is better to zero beat. Even if there are
several people calling, one is likely to be louder, faster, or not on the
exact frequency of other callers, and the CQing station will not have
problems picking out you (or one of the others). If the CQing station is
coming
back to other guys, or not picking out calls, nudging the tuning knob a few
Hz is a good technique.
With no other callers, is you are very far off frequency, it may not be
clear if you will be heard by the guy you are calling, or the next guy up or
down the band, or both. Lots of not-in-log calls and/or dupes happen because
of that.
When you find a huge pileup, so long as you are not vastly weaker than the
other guys in the pileup, calling slightly off frequency is a great way to
crack the pile. Slightly may mean at the far edge of the calling hoards,
which can be several hundred Hz.
All this applies only to CW. On SSB you need to be on frequency to be
understood. In SSB pileup cracking becomes an issue of timing.
73 - Jim K8MR
In a message dated 2/21/2012 8:25:04 A.M. Eastern Standard Time,
kdtbikes@yahoo.com writes:
I play around in contests and had a good time in the one this past
weekend. I don't use skimmer, but with my FT-2000 it is easy to zerobeat
using the visual indicator. I did hear some of the hordes that came down on
some stations and usually passed them by as I did my S&P. I am sure I
zerobeat others. Is there a recommended offset that should be used as a
general rule in contests to avoid zerobeating and causing issues?
Keith KB3ILS
_______________________________________________
CQ-Contest mailing list
CQ-Contest@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/cq-contest
|