Microsplit

Thu Dec 5 21:10:39 EST 1996

Another perspective from the DX side:

>During SSB tests, this confuses some loud ops who only give their last 2 
>letters!

I just ignore last two/three... even when they're the only station 
calling. Should they persist with airing their invalid ID, I hit F12 and 
randomly pick a call that appears in the Partial Check window. Now THAT 
really confuses them! 

> - Don't ever work a station without calling "QRZ?". Tail-ending seems so 
> tempting but DON'T DO IT. You do one tail-ender and you will never be 
> able to really complete a QSO!

I disagree entirely! N8SM put it nicely:
   "A good tail end is a DX station's delight - it can really boost the rate. 
   Often, you can complete a QSO before the rest of the pile knows what 
   happened. Unfortunately, it is a rare occurance."

Rare indeed. The problem is not the DXer picking up a tail-ender... the 
problem is the rest of 'em not knowing what the hack is going on - unless 
they listened. It hit them so fast, they didn't even know what it was. 

> If you don't follow this - you'll never calm a zero beat pile up down!
>> For a big zero beat pile - just move the RIT up or down a few hundred Hz. 

Microsplit - it's great to discover how much "split" you can work with 
just a few hundred Hz around your TX freq. It's the caller who should 
find out that you are *not* exactly zero-beat - and giving his call 
ONCE followed by listening at least 2 seconds is enough! I found that 
most of the time there is no real need to work split. Even in some 
cases where pile-ups can be quite substantial, as long as a rhythm 
between DX station and callers is established and maintained. A rhythm 
of call-listen/work-call. (If the DX signal is considerably weaker 
than the pile-up, microsplit is obviously not a good plan). However, 
there are of these days that you only find a-rhythmic callers.

Like Steve, N8SM, said, a pile-up is a dynamic phenomenon and it is to 
be treated depending on the "environmental" parameters the DX station 
finds, which can change on the fly.

In the final analysis, the behaviour of the pile-up merely reflects 
the ability of the (DX) operator to control it. If the pile-up is a 
mess - he's the one that created it in the first place!

> Should be easy!
If just not every second station were asking for QSL info...... (please!)

73, Alex D25L

>From km9p at contesting.com (Bill Fisher, KM9P / K4AAA)  Thu Dec  5 23:48:10 1996
From: km9p at contesting.com (Bill Fisher, KM9P / K4AAA) (Bill Fisher, KM9P / K4AAA)
Date: Thu, 5 Dec 1996 18:48:10 -0500 (EST)
Subject: Tks for the help
Message-ID: <199612052348.SAA08583 at paris.akorn.net>

At 09:47 PM 12/5/96 +1100, you wrote:
>Hello Bill,
>
>Just wanted to thank you for the QSO during the CQ WW contest
>and for trying to help me make a QSO with a caribbean station
>(can't remember which one right now).   I was certainly 
>struggling to get through the US pileup, despite their signal
>being 10-20 over here via long path.   I was definately 
>surprised when the caribbean station didn't pause to listen
>for my call after you gave him the info about me calling.
>I only tried a couple more calls after that and then moved
>on - with no QSO.
>
>Hope you have happy holidays and see you next year in the CW
>contests.   I'll be looking for K4AAA.

No problem Jim.  I do this often for stations in the Carib and other areas.
I hear the multi guys in the carib calling Africans often and I know they
both want to work each other but cant hear through the pile up of USA.  In
your case the guy didn't want understand or couldn't copy CW so I just
dumped in your callsign.  Sorry it didn't work.  

I will sometimes ask a W6 on 10 or 15 meters to dump my callsign in a pile
up to a station in C6A or VP9 which is always a backscatter QSO for me.  I
just like to return the favor (of sorts).

73

Bill

Bill Fisher, KM9P & K4AAA
http://www.contesting.com 