Agreed. Though I tend to do both. I will spin around the bands while watching the cluster. My program gives me an indication of the folks that use LOTW also. That is a plus. I am trying to get WAS and DXCC all through LOTW.
I find cluster's real handy as I am still working on improving my CW skills, and when these folks are clipping along, I at least have an idea on what the calls are that I am listening for. I did my first Stew Perry last weekend, and the concept exchanging grid squares was killing me. I would try to copy, listening before I tried to make contact, to get all the info, and they would reply with the call of the calling station, and the grid square of the running station. Had a hard time getting it down so I could catch it. As the night went on, I was focusing on the tail end of the calling station's call, and then new what to listen for as a trigger to listen for the running station's grid square. There were thunderstorms in the SE, and lots of QRN here on 160. I had recently killed my DSP, so I was without its help. It was much more fatiguing that I had expected. After the 60 contacts on the RAC, running family errands and shopping, then 50 contacts on Stew Perry (the longest was 3,145 kilometers) I was shot. - David Wilburn [EMAIL PROTECTED] K4DGW K2 S/N 5982 On Mon, 2007-12-31 at 19:47 +0000, Geoffrey Mackenzie-Kennedy wrote: > Tom Childers, N5GE, wrote: > > >IMHO, Just as important as a good antenna is not relying on DX clusters to > >find > >contacts for you. Tune the bands (slowly) and look for those weak signal > >stations. They are there, and you can't always depend on the other guys to > >find > >them for you. Nobody else in the whole wide world can hear the signals you > >hear > >at you QTH the same as you do. > > >Back before clusters we did a lot more QSX than TX, because we were doing a > >lot > >of tuning to find stations to rag chew with. That made QSOs more > >pleasurable > >when we found them. Good QSOs are still like good meals. Rushing through > >either, reduces the enjoyment. > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > IMHO DX clusters have not only taken away many of the skills required to > work 'new ones', but they can make it very difficult to ragchew with a DX > station who would like to ragchew, as Tom says. It seems to me FWIW that > once a DX station is spotted a howling mob arrives on frequency, many of > whom cannot hear the DX station but keep calling anyway. > > End of beef! > > Happy New Year everyone! > > 73, > Geoff > GM4ESD > > _______________________________________________ > Elecraft mailing list > Post to: [email protected] > You must be a subscriber to post to the list. > Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): > http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft > > Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm > Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: [email protected] You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com
