[VHFcontesting] Spreading out on the more congested bands

[Betty E. Raas]

Listining to the topic it seems to me that in some of the more non-active
areas that everyone stays on or near the calling freq... which can be good
to detect band openings but , I would say that is abt the only
advantage...dual vfo's one on YOUR calling freq, and 1 on THE calling freq.
(.200 on 2m ) . Or a spotter op , listining inbetween ur transmissions ,
scanning around the band....I know for a fact that here in the North East
US, that there are big time stations no wheres near the calling freq,
running q's all contest long....a few more ideas.... when sending a sked
from another band to lets say 2m or 222 or 432.....send that station way off
the natn'l call freq....at time ive send 2m skeds to 144.110! there is no
activity down there...very quiet and within the phone privilidges.... same
on 222/432  send em way up or way down if u anticipate qrm or other
interference. Another thought is to use a DSP filter for weak cw
operation...these are readily available...VERY easy to hook up and QUITE
QUITE effective!  I think this topic is very worthy of greater discussion,
Im sure many have this problem either all the time of just ocasionally ( I
know I do at times ) . Steve Raas { 1 of many N2PA op's, qrv 6-5g with 10g
soon, hopefully for august }

----- Original Message -----
From: <vhfcontesting-request at contesting.com>
To: <vhfcontesting at contesting.com>
Sent: Tuesday, June 11, 2002 9:47 AM
Subject: VHFcontesting digest, Vol 1 #194 - 3 msgs


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> Today's Topics:
>
>    1. Re: Location, location, location ... (Stanka1ze at aol.com)
>    2. Re: Location, location, location ... (Kenneth E. Harker)
>    3. re: Location, location, location ... (Betty E. Raas)
>
> --__--__--
>
> Message: 1
> From: Stanka1ze at aol.com
> Date: Tue, 11 Jun 2002 08:44:08 EDT
> To: dross at sirinet.net
> CC: vhf at w6yx.stanford.edu, vhfcontesting at contesting.com
> Subject: [VHFcontesting] Re: Location, location, location ...
>
> Hi Don,
>        I understand your problem well. I live in the CT. river valley with
a
> very dense population of contesting hams. The real serious contesters all
> live on the high ground either side of the valley. Most of the stations
run
> kW's and have an excellent antenna farm. Talk about overload, WOW! The
early
> years were a real battle. Lots of anger and hurt feelings. My solution
which
> worked beyond my wildest expectations follows:
>              1) Change my operating style to a less aggressive more
friendly
> one.
>              2) Get to know all of the players and after all we have so
much
> in common, they were all very easy to make my friends.
>              3) We all had so much in common we formed a club (NEWS) and
now
> really cheer for one another!
>
> 73,Stan KA1ZE
>
>
> --__--__--
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Tue, 11 Jun 2002 08:13:47 -0500
> From: "Kenneth E. Harker" <kharker at cs.utexas.edu>
> To: "Donald M. Ross" <dross at sirinet.net>
> Cc: VHF Reflector <vhf at w6yx.stanford.edu>,
>    VHF Contest Reflector <vhfcontesting at contesting.com>,
>    SWOT <sidewindersontwo at yahoogroups.com>
> Subject: Re: [VHFcontesting] Location, location, location ...
>
> On Mon, Jun 10, 2002 at 09:04:35PM -0500, Donald M. Ross wrote:
> > This weekend I had a rather new problem with some of the locals and am
> > looking for some advice on how to rectify the issue(s).
> >
> > Situation:  There are six active VHF contesters here in Lawton, OK and
we
> > are all clustered in such a way that there is a maximum of five miles
> > between any two of us.  As in all aspects of life, some have better
"ears"
> > than others and are frequently trying to work stations that the other
locals
> > can't even hear.  In most cases, the more "hearing impaired" stations
will
> > call CQ when the stations with the better ears are trying to pick
something
> > out of the noise.  With few exceptions, I do not believe this to be
either
> > malicious or bad manners.
> >
> > This can not be a unique problem, how are others dealing with this
issue?
>
> It is not a unique problem.  Maybe having everyone within five miles of
one
> another is more extreme than most situations, but the problem of dealing
> with your VHF neighbors is something with which I am familiar.
>
> For years, I was on the "hearing impaired" side of the equation.  I
operated
> a lot of VHF contests from N5XU, the University of Texas Amateur Radio
Club.
> N5XU is not very far from the bottom of the Colorado River valley, at
something
> like 600' ASL.  Less than 30 miles away, there are several big stations
> running kilowatts, located 900' to 1200' ASL.  N5XU is literally in the
> center of a large city (Austin,) in the center of the computer/engineering
> quadrant of the campus (at least 50,000 computers in a 0.5 mile radius,)
> and right across the street from a power plant!  Add to that several
> very close buildings that are much taller (one we measured is a 30dB
> attenuator on 70cm) and you have a poor location for VHF/UHF.
>
> I know several of these guys in the hills out in the country would get
> annoyed at us calling CQ when they were trying to listen for a weak
> signal.  Most of the time, they'd wait until we'd called CQ several times
> and they were good and mad before they'd ever key the mic and tell us in
> a pissed-off way to shut up.  The fact that we were generally 1/3 to 1/2
> their age made them even more haughty.
>
> My observation about VHF/UHF is that the _vast_ majority of VHF/UHF weak
> signal operators in the contests are not, and do not want to be,
contesters.
> Some of them are just ragchewers who stumble into something and play along
> for a bit.  The only way you work these people is to call CQ a lot.  The
> rest are mostly DXers, whose main objective of the weekend is working
> all-time-new grids.  They don't care about working 50 or 60 QSOs in their
> own grid - they want to sit there on 144.200 all weekend and find that
> rover or someone in that next grid out from where they've worked before.
> What they really want is a DXing event, not a contest.  This is quite
> different from HF contests, where DXers and contesters get along quite
> well.
>
> Throw DXers and contesters together on, say, 144.200 (I literally _never_
> hear anyone CQing more than a kHz or two off of that frequency in Texas)
> and it's easy to have lots of conflict - especially if the DXers can hear
> better than you can and they don't understand or want to understand the
> motivation and interests of the contesters on frequency.
>
> >
> >
> > -- __--__--
> >
> > Message: 9
> > From: "Donald M. Ross" <dross at sirinet.net>
> > To: "VHF Reflector" <vhf at w6yx.stanford.edu>,
> >    "VHF Contest Reflector" <vhfcontesting at contesting.com>,
> >    "SWOT" <sidewindersontwo at yahoogroups.com>
> > Date: Mon, 10 Jun 2002 21:04:35 -0500
> > Subject: [VHFcontesting] Location, location, location ...
> >
> > This weekend I had a rather new problem with some of the locals and am
> > looking for some advice on how to rectify the issue(s).
> >
> > Situation:  There are six active VHF contesters here in Lawton, OK and
we
> > are all clustered in such a way that there is a maximum of five miles
> > between any two of us.  As in all aspects of life, some have better
"ears"
> > than others and are frequently trying to work stations that the other
> locals
> > can't even hear.  In most cases, the more "hearing impaired" stations
will
> > call CQ when the stations with the better ears are trying to pick
> something
> > out of the noise.  With few exceptions, I do not believe this to be
either
> > malicious or bad manners.
> >
> > This can not be a unique problem, how are others dealing with this
issue?
> >
> > Don, NL7CO/EM04
> >

>