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What a mess.
23 January 2022 | by Yesterday afternoon I was listening to II3WRTC which is a special call sign to promote WRTC (world radio team championship) there are 12 stations taking part one from each Italian call area. II3WRTC is from region 3. The event goes from January 1 to July 10 and to be honest this is the first time I have heard them on the air. Anyway, I degrees, as I was listening to the II3WRTC station I was shocked by the large pileup they had going. The station was operating simplex and in a nutshell, it was a mess! I made an audio recording of it and to be honest I have no idea how the special event station heard any call and how the callers knew if they had made it with a confirmation 559?
I was surprised the station was not working split and hope that the other regions do use split when thing get as crazy as they were with II3WRTC.
12 Responses to “What a mess.”
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Seems like split would have helped a lot. I’m often surprised that even when rare stations do that and there is a good opening to a populated area like North America they don’t call by district. That would really help to reduce the number in the pile-ups, and be a lot fairer too. Here in the Midwest it’s often a battle to get over the “walls” of hams calling from the coasts, at least until propagation shifts.
Good evening Richard very nice to hear from you, that is a great idea for the very crowed conditions that a rare station would cause. Oh and I was reading your QRZ page and see that you have an attic antenna. I also at one time used the attic in a townhouse. I installed an Alpha Delta EE and had it in a Z configuration. Having an antenna in the attic is great as the weather does not affect it and you can go up year round to service it if needed.
73 Richard and thanks for stopping by,
Mike
VE9KK
Hi Mike,
Seems to me the real problem there were the people who did not respect the operator’s request for partial callsigns to answer only. For example, he asked for GO and people with calls that did not contain these letters continued to call. The operator was actually doing a good job if only people had let him.
When operating special calls it’s difficult when to choose to go over to split. You don’t want to overreact and appear as if you are super rare, and sometimes piles like that one play themselves out in a couple of minutes, so you feel an idiot for having decided to go split for nothing.
It all comes down to self-discipline I guess, but that’s in short supply these days!
73,
Colin
I, too, hope the DX operates according to your personal preferences.
Good morning Colin, very good overall view of the situation. I can see how things did get out of hand and I was listening for about 20 minutes but as you say over time things could have settled down. I do agree that certain op’s were just not paying attention and were sending their call out no matter what. Overall this is rare but I was shocked when I came across it.
Have a great week,
73,
Mike
VE9KK
Hello Tom very nice to hear from you, yes it would be nice that now and then in the unusual situation of a special event pile up that the op considers working split.
73,
Mike
VE9KK
Not many people call me Tom, but everyone is different.
I doubt DX gives a tinker’s damn about your opinion on how they choose to operate.
Don’t you agree?
Good morning Todd, very sorry for calling you Tom it’s true I am different but not in that way.
As for DX not sure if they give a “tinker’s damn”…..oh I had a cat called tinker but I digress…the post was about a special event station that technically could be DX or local. This one just happened to be DX. Oh dear, I digress once again Todd.
Back to addressing your question, I do not agree and it is my humble opinion that they just could give a tinker’s damn. A special event station or DX as you seem to want to toss that into the mix as well want to get as many stations in the log and if this suggestion could help them then yes they just might give a good old tinker’s damn.
It’s been a blast Todd have a great week and thanks for the comment,
73,
Mike
VE9KK
Good points and observation Mike.
We have all also experienced similar here in NA … say for example during the 13 Colonies and Route 66 events.
I work CW only and the stations will start requesting/running by call districts, etc..
Problem I often see/hear is that OMs don’t pay attention to such and still blast away and often with 1KW.
Just no manners or simply even paying attention to the ‘districts’ or ‘up’ notations.
Sad …
GM Mike-
I always enjoy your column with timely topics of the day from NB. Hearty support for your point to all (some more than others) that the amateur radio ideals of ‘Listen First’ and ‘Always Be Courteous’ should be more liberally applied.
Offer some positive training ideas, not complaints and criticism of his efforts. From over here in North America none of us know what II3WRTC’s local reception conditions were. If we all make the job easier we’ll complete our contact exchanges faster.
73 and gud DX in cycle 25 –
Karl WA8NVW
Good evening Nolan and very nice to hear from you, I was in the 13 Colonies and yes at times it can get very busy. Toward the end, things can get crazy as some are very close to getting all 13 colonies and are only looking for a few.
Have a great weekend,
73,
Mike
VE9KK
Good evening Karl and thanks for the support in reading the blog, I agree II3WRTC does have a very tough job and actually I was able to contact him today as he was calling CQ all alone on 20m.
73 and have a great what is left of the weekend,
Mike
VE9KK