[UK-CONTEST] Warming Up

[Keith Maton]

Ray,

I've heard this a couple of times since my post and I don't understand it.  It's very common to tune around the band in the few minutes before a contest to hear whistles and callsigns galore as people find a spot and occupy it.  We've all got to co-exist in the available bandwidth so to me it makes sense to find a free frequency in advance.  Likewise when I qsy from the frequency I start on (this always happens) I wouldn't dream of just starting to shout CQ without asking whether the frequency is in use two or three times.

I would say I'm 99% sure the station in question could hear me, I'd go as far as to say that this probably affected that person more than it did me, for me it was largely a frustration at hearing someone on the frequency I'd been using for the previous fifteen minutes or so calling CQ 30 seconds before the official start time (according to my MSF set timepiece) without asking or checking if it was in use.

Perhaps next month I'll do my usual S&P session at the start rather than at the end.

73
Keith







On 7 Jan 2010, at 16:07, Ray Hills wrote:

> Keith,
> 
> Maybe whoever it was disagrees with the concept of "keeping a frequency 
> warm".  It is not a practice that particularly appeals to me either as it 
> rather smacks of "my frequency", something I deprecate.  I agree that 
> unknowingly causing QRM by not checking the channel first is bad practice 
> but maybe he (or she) didn't hear you??
> 
> Ray G3HRH 
> 
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