[VHFcontesting] Nevermind

[Duane - N9DG]

I disagree, it *can* work.

In your case it obviously didn't, and I have experienced the exact same thing you describe in the past. But by also piling onto 144.200 you (and the others sitting .200) likely (or could have) missed yet other Q's that you could have made. I see this play out in almost every contest when I point toward Chicago from 150 miles away. There is invariably a crowd on .200, just about everyone of them are the casual or newbie ops who were told that "VHF contesting = sitting on the calling frequencies". In many cases I can hear most of them just fine, but they will often not hear me no matter what I do or how often I call on .200, they simply can't hear me because they are buried in a sea of signal splatter from all the other locals on their end. If they were to tune 25-50 kHz away from .200 they would have found me and be able to work me with no problems at all. And if an even longer haul DX station was also clinging to .200 they large urban center crowd would
 not hear them either. Most of my truly long haul Q's to the far away big guns and multis are usually not on .200, in fact to find them there is somewhat rare…

So what to do about it? Well, I have found a fair degree of success of putting out CQ's on .200 when my "preferred frequency" becomes unproductive, but announce as part of that CQ that I'll be taking responses to my CQ on a freq 25-50 KHz up or down the band. Does it work on every call? No. But many times I get a small group to follow me up or down to my preferred freq and I can work that small group where they can hear me good and I can work them easily with out having to fight a pile of QRM. Some rovers in this area also do a similar thing. All in all I think it is a good strategy that helps spread the ops out a bit and it also helps to teach the casual and newbie ops that clinging to .200 isn't truly a good strategy. So in essence am I treating .200 as a "calling frequency", but strive to actually *work* others elsewhere.

Everybody's radio has VFO on it, please turn it, .... and turn it a lot...

Duane
N9DG (who sat out this contest) 
EN53bj

--- On Mon, 1/19/09, Steve Clifford <k4gun.r at gmail.com> wrote:

> From: Steve Clifford <k4gun.r at gmail.com>
> Subject: [VHFcontesting] Nevermind
> To: "VHF Contesting" <vhfcontesting at contesting.com>
> Date: Monday, January 19, 2009, 9:20 AM
> A common rover frequency can't work.  This weekend's
> contest taught me
> that.  I tried using 144.245 for a while with absolutely no
> response.  I
> called and called.  I then tuned to the calling frequency
> and moved up and
> down until I found a clear spot and called again.  The
> closer I was to
> 144.200, the quicker I got an answer.  Contacts were fast
> and furious using
> this method and non-existent when on 144.245.  I was
> surprised at how
> drastic the Q rate was.  I tried several times to make sure
> it wasn't an
> anomaly and it wasn't.
> 
> I'll post a complete recap of this weekend a bit later
> today.  Suffice to
> say, it was a LOT better than anticipated.
> 
> Steve
> K4GUN/R