Topband: Interference on 160

[John Harden]

It has been my pleasure to have been a ham and DXer since 1959 at age 
15. There was a lot of howling going on even back then. Once Buck Joyner 
(SK about 1970) was on AM. Someone told him he was "wide". He came back 
laughingly and said "I'm not wide, ...I'm just loud!" He had the biggest 
signal in Atlanta.

Many times people forget to put their VFO's on split, or they do not 
hear the DX station well due to QSB, QRM or whatever. I would say that 
the vast majority of DXers do not do anything intentionally in the heat 
of battle.... This is just a hobby and I do not think that we need any 
policemen.

Nobody listens to them anyway. The ones that get upset are usually the 
ones that do not get through....... Nothing is going to change.

I remember operating portable 9K2 while deployed to the combat theater 
in 2002. The Russian & European QRM was unbelieveable, and almost 
intolerable at times. However I politely told them to "stand by for USA" 
and didn't get upset at all. I did not put anyone on a no QSL list. In 
fact, when I returned stateside, I send every USA station a card at my 
own expense. I didn't care how many times they called on top of the 
station I was trying to work.

73,

John, W4NU
(K4JAG 1959 to 1998)