Saturday, April 23, 2011

More silly things heard on the radio

This is a follow-on post to my recent post "Weird things heard on the radio". If this keeps up, perhaps I'll make this a series, though I'm not sure that "weird" is quite the right word. Silly is more like it, and I've adjusted the title of this post accordingly.

As I write this at about 18:30 GMT on 23 April,  I am attempting to work 9M2TO from West Malasia on 17m phone. He's got a good-sized pileup and of course, there's the usual guys who can't figure out how to turn their VFO to tune up their amplifier off the frequency. For non-hams who might be reading, this sounds like a high-pitched squeal on the frequency, and is pretty annoying. Aside from it being rude, it's in violation of FCC rules against intentionally interfering with ongoing transmissions. (I'm sure that it's against the rules for amateur radio operators in any country, of course.) That's not the silly part, that's the annoying part.

Here's the silly part: As usual, the DX Cops are present, and one of them said the following: "Hey, don't tune up on the frequency". Some of you will immediately know why this is silly, but I'll elaborate: Under normal circumstances, when you are transmitting you are not receiving. Aside from the fact that the guy who was tuning up likely doesn't care what anyone else thinks, he's not going to hear the guy yelling at him. All it does to yell is to add to the noise, which is as bad as the guy tuning up.

4 comments:

  1. Hi David, I guess this guy was more used to call on the phone. Probabely he has a rig that looks like a mobile phone ;-) Did you make it to 9M2TO by the way? 73, Bas

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  2. Hi Bas, nope, no luck working 9M2TO. I would have liked to have worked him for a new mode (I have 9M2 on both CW and RTTY but not phone).

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  3. Good morning David, not really up on the phone bands at all. I find here in my tight quarters (condo living) I produce some good RFI when on phone. But like you I have in the past heard this "silly" back and forth banter on phone...now having said that CW is not without scrutiny. I have heard tune uppers there and some code hoop la going on as well.

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  4. On CW, I've heard guys sending obscenities at each other, which I found just plain astonishing.

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