I had an improved CQWW year over year, last year : 2011 105 QSO,
~26K pts; 2012 154 QSO, ~86K pts (26 zones, 77 entities) Single op
unassisted low power
Congrats on the improvement!
I heard operators on 40M saying they were split, with the
listening frequency down in the data segment below 7.125Mhz.
(i.e. Op is on 7.154, listening 7.038)
Is this practice acceptable? 40M is the only band I heard this
on, however was confused and didn't work those stations.
If you were hearing folks CQing at 7154 and listening 7038, that was most likely US guys running DX - you wouldn't want to work them anyway. But obviously you wouldn't transmit SSB at 7038 in any event.
You should listen outside the US phone segment for DX stations calling CQ and listening up in the US phone band. Say an Italian transmitting at 7075 and listening for US at 7200. It's perfectly fine to call these guys.
HTH,
73 de Lee