OK, so I finally got enough laundry done to sit down & try CQing for a
few minutes in the CQ WW SSB. Running 500 watts to a 7-el tribander
at 20m, I'm not the loudest signal on the band but I'm not a QRP
lightweight either.
21.405 sounds open. I ask (twice) whether it's in use. No response.
Switch to CW, send a dit-stream to double-check the tuning on the amp
- no response. Ask yet again (on SSB) whether the frequency is in
use. No response.
Start calling CQ. Get a few answers, including Europeans. Not much
rate, but it's something. Until, about ten minutes later:
"CQ CONTEST OSCAR ECHO TWO SIERRA OSCAR ECHO TWO SIERRA".
Right out of the clear blue sky. Didn't ask whether there was anyone
there, didn't listen before transmitting, just suddenly appeared &
decided 21.405 was their private property. Didn't go away when it
became obvious there was another station there. [0]
We're darned lucky the station they stomped on was another contester.
If it had been a schedule, ragchew, or net (however useless) on
21.405, this behavior would have generated at least two
contest-haters, ready to lobby their local IARU society to ban our
pursuit. I wonder how many of the anti-contest letters that regularly
appear in QST and RadComm were provoked by similar behavior?
There have been similar complaints posted here before, but I guess
they finally caught me on a day when I was sleep-deprived enough to
name names. OE2S is not the *only* guilty party (and there are plenty
here in the States - it's not just a European thing by any means) but
they *are* a guilty party.
This kind of crap HAS GOT TO STOP. It's going to get us exiled to
woefully inadequate slivers of the bands. If I'd been recording the
contest, a recording *would* be on the way to the Contest Committee.
Are we going to have to get a few folks DQd, or are we just going to
go ahead & provoke the non-contesters into driving us out of business?
[0] I know damned well they could hear me. I was (until they showed
up) working stations in bordering countries - and had worked OE2S
themselves just about an hour earlier. And, when I refused to simply
disappear when they started CQing, at one point they pretended (or
thought) I answered their CQ - and got my call 100% right. This kind
of thing can - and does - happen by mistake when QRM/QSB conditions
are poor. What happened here today **was no mistake**.
==
Doug Smith W9WI
Pleasant View, TN EM66
http://www.w9wi.com
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