[CQ-Contest] SS CW Secrets #7

[Tree]

I received a great question from Jay, K4OGG:

> You are S&P on R2 and working a station that is running.  After the running 
> station gives his/her exchange do you send his/her call sign before sending 
> your exchange?  Is is "quality control" to do so or is it a waste of time?

Many people would quickly answer this as a waste of time.  However, it might 
be a good thing to do in certain situations and perhaps is also a good thing
to do on Sunday - where taking a couple of seconds to make it clear who you 
are working is appreciated by all.

If you are aware that two people thought you were answering them, it is a
very good idea to make sure they understand who you are working.  If you 
have any doubt about the callsign of the station you are calling, sending
his call as part of the exchange offers some chance for them to correct 
you if you got it wrong.  

During the first few hours, some people will be a little impatient hearing
their call sent - especially if you are sending it slowly.  If you are using
software to send your exchanges, you can send the call faster than the rest
of the exchange.  

If you are QRP (or weak for other reasons), you run the risk of extending 
the length of your exchange too much by doing this and having more QRM
moving in on the frequency.  

If you are doing a good job of zero beating, there will be less of a chance
of two people thinking your are calling them.

Well, let's talk about frequency selection.  I am not going to give you a
set rule that clearly defines what the right frequency is.  However, I will
share some observations that I have made over the years that might help
you improve your frequency selection.  

First off, avoid W1AW code practice frequencies.  I got blown off of a
frequency on 40 meters one year from W5WMU because of this (up at 7.048).
Someone did come on ahead and try to warn me that code practice was going
to start up...  but it is impossible to QSY a little bit in the crowded
parts of the band and I had no choice except to go to another part of 
the band.

I will assume that you have sufficient CW filtering to hang out on most
any frequency.  Some people use very narrow filters, but I am not sure
that is the best approach for the SS.  I have survived in the most crowded
parts of the band with a pair of stock 500 Hz filters in my TS850.  My
clear channel typically will fit right in with those filters.  If someone
calls me off frequency, I might need to narrow down to pick them out from
my next door neighbor.

Using narrow filters will make it harder to hear people that are calling
you off frequency - and also "allow" people to move in closer to you than
the "average" distance that most people maintain.  You will also get people
upset at you because you might thing a frequency is clear, and most of the
other stations will think you are too close.  You should only use narrow
filters when receiving a specific station that is too close to another 
signal.  I can't over emphasize this point.  When I use a radio with the
super 400 Hz filters, I do not feel that my ears are properly connected
to the band.  

Having two radios is a big asset in finding frequencies.  If you are looking
to QSY to a new band, you should be S&Ping there.  If you find a clear 
sounding frequency, you should "try before you buy" while keeping your
current run frequency.  If you find there is nobody defending the 
frequency, then you can jump down.  Using two radios has totally removed
the pressure to find a new frequency that single radio people often 
feel.

When K1TO won the SS CW, he operated right up to the end of the contest
while I had off time to burn during the last half hour.  I found Dan 
down around 7010 and was surprised to hear him getting lots of answers
to his CQs.  I used this information to my advantage during my recent
QRP effort - spending a lot of time down around 7005 - with very good
results.  The extra band is a great place to get away from the big
signals clogging up the more "desirable" frequencies and actually get
some pretty decent rate.  The same goes for frequenies up near the 
top of the band.  

On 15 and 10 meters, you might not hear much activity from .080 to .100,
but don't stop there.  There seems to be a group of people who like to
hang out in the novice band (even though they are not novices).  I 
always try to spend a little time up there on Sunday when every QSO
is hard to find.

When operating on the higher bands, you need to realize that the weak signals 
on the band that are within your skip zone probably represent your biggest 
threat than the louder ones.  The loud ones will stay away from your 
frequency because you are loud too.  Someone who is skipping over you might 
not be able to hear you at all and think your frequency is totally clear.  
It is hard to win that frequency battle unless you can get people to come 
back to you that he hears.  Sometimes, you just have to give up and find 
another frequency in this situation.   

Want to see if a frequency is in use?  Many schools of thought here, but the 
basic process is to listen for some length of time (the length of a typical 
exchange is about the right time - 10 seconds or so) and then transmit 
something to see if someone is there.  If K3ZO comes on your frequency and
calls CQ, that is just Fred's way of asking if the frequency is in use.
Don't take it personally, just make some noise, and he will go away (unless
he generated a pileup in which case you are probably dead meat).

Many people will use di-dit dit to ask if a frequency is in use.  This is 
much less of a interruption than "QRL?" or a CQ.  If you do a couple of them 
and nobody sends anything back, then try a quick CQ or two.  If nobody 
complains about this, then you are probably ready to seriously use the 
frequency.  

If someone asks if your frequency is in use - sending a quick
 "di-da-di-di-dit" is probably a good idea if you are in the middle of
receiving an exchange.  A great time to do that is when he is sending his
callsign if you can time it that way.

Sometimes, someone will actually "own" the frequency, but they were busy 
finishing up a QSO on another band.  This gets into an aarea I can't really
give good advice on.  It depends on how long the person is away from the 
frequency.  If a new station comes on frequency and does due diligence at
seeing if a QSO is in process and you do nothing to indicate that you "own"
the frequency, then I am not sure who really has the "right" to own the
frequency.  Generally, one of the two stations will quickly back down and
you have to make your own decisions.  Personally, I am not sure anyone who
agrees to be in the contest can expect their to be no challenges to their
frequency during the event.  If you are not in a QSO with another station,
I am not sure calling CQ really indicates frequency ownership.  Certainly,
you will get people mad if you constantly take their frequency from them,
but it is part of the game and if someone that can't hear me well shows
up on my frequency, and starts getting lots of responses to their CQ and
I am getting nothing, who really should have the frequency anyway?  Even
if I have been there for 4 hours, it isn't clear that I can justify 
continuing to own the frequency if I can't produce enough activity to keep
the frequency clear.  You can almost take this to the point of saying that
nobody owns any frequency when they are just CQing.  If someone can take
your frequency away from you, then it isn't clear to me that it is a bad
thing in the context of a contest.

If you are having great success at running on a frequency and for whatever 
reason, some turkey comes and takes you frequency over, you should realize 
that if you were able to make hay on that band before, you can probably
establish yourself on a new frequency pretty easy.  The concept here is that
if you do not have a competitive signal on the band, you won't have much 
success running.  If somenthing happens that forces you to move (like W1AW
code practice), you probably can QSY and make stuff happen fairly quickly.

Sometimes your neighbors on the band will have a different opinion of how
close you can be to them than you do.  They will come on your frequency 
and ask you to QSY, or start moving in a little bit closer to your frequency
to try and push you down.  You need to realize that sometimes this is being
done because they are being pushed from the other side of their frequency.
Maybe someone tried to squeeze into a gap in the band.

When this happens, and if you do have some room you can move down into, it
is a great thing when people respace themselves on the band as things
change.  If that doesn't work, then you need to stick to your guns and see
what happens.  It can turn into a situation where one of you will have to
QSY and it is always interesting to see how the decision gets made on who
it will be.  One great thing to do that sometimes works if is the station 
crowds down too far, and you can jump over them and take over the gap 
he made above him.  I do that about once a contest.

Back when N5TJ was QRP, I noticed he was the next station up from me on
40 meters when I was at W5WMU.  Call this "drafting".  I guess he didn't
feel that he was going to have much competition to the frequency since I 
was so strong.  However, he seemed to have a good rate.  I haven't ever 
done this myself, but it is something to keep in mind that might work.  
This sometimes works out on the higher bands as well, where a strong 
station might open up a hole in the band, but you can get some rate going
working people who are close to that station that can't hear him very well.

There will always be times where you aren't sure you are on the right 
band.  I will often listen to stations that I know are in a similar
situation as me who are on the other bands and see how many responses
they are getting compared to me over a period of a few minutes.  For 
example, if I am on 15 meters at W5WMU and I hear somone like K5GN 
on 20 or 10 meters, I can compare my rates to his to see if I am holding
my own CQing.  This is a good technique on Sunday.

Well, that's most of the things I can think of.  Hopefully a one of two
of them will be useful - and feel free to document any I didn't mention
that are in your own personal war chest.  

This weekend will be filled with some minor repair work around the station.
Need to get a rotator rebuilt so I have a rotatable 10 meter antenna, and
I have to fix a hardline connection for that antenna as well.  I think I
might take Friday off from work to finish up the preparations.  That is 
one thing I really enjoy when going to W5WMU is having Friday to take my
time getting everything all set without rushing.  I remember one year
where I was having 20 db over S9 line noise towards the west.  This was
going to be a BIG problem.  We called the power company and got very 
lucky.  They had a couple of crews working just down the street from us
and they came over that afternoon and found a cracked insulator and 
replaced it.  Wow!!  If you are in a similar situation, you can get a 
quicker response if you use some key words during your phone call.  I
think the one that worked best was "arcs".

Code speed - start the contest around 35 - 37 WPM.  Slow down as the rate
does.  You will probably want to be around 30 WPM on Sunday or a little
less.

One other little trick for those of you who are reading this all the 
way through - if you have 2 or 3 stations calling you and they are QRMing
themselves so that you can't pull one of the callsigns out. You should
try to use a well timed ? to solve the problem.  This is more efficient
than coming back to a partial callsign.  If you send the ? right after 
the FIRST station has finished sending his call, the other stations
will not hear it and there will be a nice opening for the first station
calling to send his call again.  This will often be the station who
was sending faster, so the resulting QSO will take less time, increasing
your chances of the other stations sticking around (after all, they are
sending slower, so they are less likely to move on).  I'll even do that 
if the slower station is really loud, just so I can work the faster
station first.

My brain is starting to run out of ideas.  I'll talk a little about what
to expect on each band in my next posting.  However, please send me any
thoughts or questions that I can share.  

73 Tree N6TR
tree at kkn.net