POTA's Big Announcement: NEW Parks on the Air Plaque Event

Next thing you know, they'll be some kind of contest every weekend... oh wait..

 

HA! Too funny.

 

I always figured that people can work a pileup however they want. It's their pileup, after all.

 

I hear "CQ CWT" or "CQ MST" et cetera nearly every day, not just on weekends. I have nothing against contests, but I wish there were small areas of the non-WARC bands that were reserved for non-contest activity.

 

Field Day isn't really very much like POTA except that they are both things you do outside the shack. Most of the rest of the world doesn't care a hoot about the Field Day contest. It probably won't be very interested in the POTA contest weekend either, except for those of us who participate in POTA outside of that weekend, or those on sites like this who need to find something to complain about.

There are many excellent QRP operators, activators and hunters or chasers who want to do it that way, and they are highly-respected. But why should activators be restricted because of the behaviour of hunters or chasers? Who defined what "the spirit of portable radio operations" is? There has always been some QRO portable radio, a chap called Marconi started it off. I've operated portable from a couple of his old haunts myself. The big driver of portable activity these days is not QRP, or a desire to hike or climb, it is a wish to escape domestic QRM. If people want to recreate their shack on a folding table, that's their right. I don't think the problem of "bullies" is all that bad in the various *OTA activities. What I hear in DX pileups is always far, far worse.

The fact remains that there would be far less activity on CW and phone on HF these days compared to 20-30 years ago if SOTA/POTA/WWFF/castles and lighthouses programmes did not exist. There is still plenty of room on the bands even with them.

 

In my mind, Portable equals QRP, but only because portable to me means long hikes and getting FAR away from civilization and small/light kit is limited in output. If I could get a radio the size of my KX2, but at QRO power levels (the 100w Yaesu 891 is close, but not light enough, especially when you factor in the battery requirements), then I'd happily operate at QRO power levels. I picked my gear for size and weight, not power output.

Chris

 

You are correct of course, anyone can operate any way they want... But tailending is a generally frowned upon method of operating, so if it's being encouraged by the operator... Well... it's encouraging bad etiquette, simple as that.

My brother used to fart in our dog's face. We laughed at him. That encouraged him to do it more. It was still bad behavior.

 

There is!

2 kc either side of wherever I'm operating.

 

Frowned upon by who?

Is there a book of etiquette for contesting? My definition of 'tailending' would be when all the dummies in the unintelligible multi-station high-power RF collision yell their callsign immediately after the target station has unkeyed.

Seems to me a brief pause to help separate the callsigns from one another makes it a LOT easier for the target station.

Otherwise its just a 'power war'...might makes right. 1500 watts and a beam will always beat 100 watts on a wire. So in MY book of contesting etiquette, it's entirely proper, AND skillful, for the guy running 100 watts and a wire to pause until the throng has subsided, and a half second later, transmit that callsign when it has a chance of being heard by the target station.

That is exactly what he or she is listening for: a callsign they can hear.

 

Good points. I concede.

 

I don't think this really holds up to critical examination. Someone might consider it bad etiquette (for example) for people who are running a kilowatt to expect to stomp on everyone else, and then wag their fingers at people who are "cheating" by "tail-ending." Unless one believes in the Divine Right of Splatterbox Operators to Dominate Things, there are various ways to so-called unfairly dominate, including beams, running a linear amp, or tail-ending.
Tail-ending is perhaps a way for people to fight back against the power guys... but no, according to some they aren't allowed to fight back, because someone's elmer told them in 1955 that tail-ending was bad etiquette.

 

Yes, there actually IS a book of etiquette for contesting, and ham radio operating in general, written by some well respected radio amateurs:

https://www.mcmc.gov.my/skmmgovmy/m...II-Ethics-and-Procedure-for-Radio-Amateur.pdf

Tailending is calling the DX (or target station) just as (or slightly before) the previous station he just worked is unkeying HIS last transmission to the DX/target station. When tailending overlaps with the end of the last stations transmission, it becomes intentional interference.

And people even do it on CW, which I always ignore when I'm at a park on CW

Glenn AE0Q

 

The post you're responding to is proof to me that "know code hams" aren't any better operators than "no code hams". Hell, even I knew that was poor operating practice...

I should start collecting such statements and posting them whenever someone claims using a particular mode or having a license for some number of decades makes them a better operator.

I see the same thing in the shooting sports:
"I've been shooting guns longer than you've been alive".
"Well, you've been doing it wrong the entire time!"

Chris

 

Awww, many of us started operating portable on ARRL Field Days a LONG time ago. Just getting on the air from the woods with ANY radio and temporary antennas was the goal for most of us.

https://www.qsl.net/ae0q/contest/wa0vis.htm
https://www.qsl.net/ae0q/fd71.htm

I used my big Blazer as a QRP contesting platform 25 yrs ago, and I see you have a big truck and even bigger trailer for YOUR QRP operating. Really, how do either of THOSE equate to a "spirit" of low power ?? I'd guess that with 100AH or more of big, lead acid batteries we both had plenty of power available behind the 5w output radios And big V8s to move them around... I used a 5w radio with big wire antennas on a hill in a rare state (Wyoming) to get an advantage in the QRP category, and it worked every time I went up there !

https://www.qsl.net/ae0q/contest/wyo.htm



Today I have a lighter weight LiFePO4 battery that runs my 100w output Eagle just fine. I really don't see portable ham radio as a low power activity. It certainly didn't start that way for everyone...

Wellll, maybe because fewer of them can even HEAR the portable stations :-( Not everyone has a 60 ft tower and tribander. Many days I can't hear any of the people spotted on the POTA site. OK, I just have a wire in a tree at home, but I DO have a good radio.

The popularity of the WRC and other marginally efficient antennas that many East coast guys get away with using (because hams are so densely packed there) means a lot of weak, crappy signals farther away.

Glenn AE0Q

 

I was referring to the version of tailending referred to in post #74:

"They hear BRRHHZZZHHZZ!!!!! and then a single callsign and they jump on it."

This is the operation where the tailender is the 'caboose' after the trainwreck of jumbled callsigns all simultaneously responding AT the target station.

Your comment (presumably about me, since I was the one he was responding to) leads me to believe that your version of tailending is where an operator is attempting to dominate the responses by jumping on the PTT button (or key) before the target station has actually unkeyed...jumping the gun, so to speak. I would agree that is a bit aggresive and probably not based on skill, rather, a lack of courtesy for others on the frequency.

I take pride in good operating procedures in regards to my station. Please do not assume and post otherwise.