[CQ-Contest] Skimmer had finally arrived

[Jeff Blaine]

Keith,

I worked the Nigerian station in the ARRL DX CW contest last week.

He had a gigantic pileup.  I don't have a monster signal - but given the 
amount of guys who were zero beating on him, I imagined he must hear just a 
blur.  And knowing most DX tends to work UP when in split, I guessed he 
would have a tendency to listen UP even when in simplex.  So I went up about 
100 hz from the hordes banging away - he came back to me on the first call.

I could have just been lucky with that guy.  But I have used the same 
strategy before in other cases and it generally let's me work the guy.

73/jeff/ac0c
www.ac0c.com
alpha-charlie-zero-charlie

-----Original Message----- 
From: Collins, Graham
Sent: Wednesday, February 22, 2012 11:10 AM
To: cq-contest at contesting.com
Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] Skimmer had finally arrived

An interesting discussion.

I operate primarily QRP power and when operating CW many of the suggestions 
others have made are what I use to try and be heard - zero beating, if that 
doesn't work then plus or minus a wee bit or a wee bit more, speeding up of 
slowing down my sending, and sometimes adjusting dot-dash ratio a bit - 
anything that will make my tiny signal stand out just a bit more to get 
heard.

Something else I do is run a audio spectrum analyzer program (Spectran is 
the program and is windows app but will run on LINUX using WINE). It will 
show not only zero beat of the station I am interested in but I can also 
spot trends in who the station is replying too - consistently higher or 
lower than zero beat and by how much and if I set my receive filter fairly 
wide I can note where some other station is calling - either higher or 
lower - than the one I am currently trying to work which makes it easier to 
move on to another when done with the first.

Cheers, Graham ve3gtc


-----Original Message-----
From: cq-contest-bounces at contesting.com 
[mailto:cq-contest-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of Robert Brandon
Sent: February 22, 2012 10:43
To: cq-contest at contesting.com
Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] Skimmer had finally arrived

I like the suggestion to just turn on a little XIT before you start clicking
on spots.  The bigger the pileup, the more offset I'll use.  Many of the
best ops will run pretty wide filters and/or will tune off to the sides of
the pileup.

Robert K5PI (at V31TP)

-----Original Message-----
From: cq-contest-bounces at contesting.com
[mailto:cq-contest-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of Keith Thomas
Sent: Tuesday, February 21, 2012 5:56 AM
To: cq-contest at contesting.com
Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] Skimmer had finally arrived

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
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