W9MDB wrote:
I'm all ears for opinions from operators who have had a call pileup on them.
I've been a ham since 1955, General in '56, Extra '59. I've always been primarily a CW op, mostly contesting and chasing DX. I've been the guy on the DX end of pileups working CW in a major contest, no split operation. I also work RTTY contests as part of a club that often wins them. So far, I've not gotten interested in FT4/FT8 contesting on HF.
I'm near San Francisco and have a very good station. I use FT8 extensively on 160M during the winter to work EU, and both FT8 and MSK144 on 6M chasing grids. I rarely call CQ, mostly tail-ending stations I want to work, just as Dave does. That's smart operating.
The craziest I've seen FT8 is when 6M is open to JA, often with JTAlert's 4x9 display nearly full of decodes. By far the best way to work it is to call CQ with Call First off, Auto Seq on, Hold TX Freq on, and pick the station I want to respond to.
As to this lockout thing -- IMO, the nuisance calls come from new folks who have little HF experience, have massive receive noise, and never realize the band is open for DX, only look at JTAlert, and are calling the only signals strong enough to get through their noise. A library of lockout calls is quite unlikely to work, because it's different new folks every time! Indeed, those JA openings are almost the only time I call CQ, and for that reason! The only folks I want calling me are the DX I want to work, and I don't want guys who can't hear or don't have a clue covering them up!
73, Jim K9YC _______________________________________________ wsjt-devel mailing list wsjt-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wsjt-devel
