[50mhz] Airing the Laundry

[Marvin L. Jones]

On Mon, 23 May 2005, rm2usn at juno.com wrote:

>....... When I get in a rare
>Grid square, I sometimes QSY down to 50.120. I have been cussed and
>discussed for doing this and have been told "This frequency is for
>DX ONLY". Now, that is a relative statement because I worked a JA
>from DM74 one time and on his card, he thanked me for the rare DX
>contact.

Not relative at all.  No ConUS stn should be calling 'casual' CQ's
below .125.  When I'm searching for weak DX stns the last thing I want
is strong ConUS stns hollering CQ in that narrow sub-band.  When I
know there is DX about, I will call "CQ DX" down there -- but, only
intermittently and certainly not for minutes on end.  And I NEVER
reply to some ConUS lid that calls me there -- unless it's a quick
"PSE QSY .175" or the somesuch.

When I'm looking for grid squares to fill in,
I am not tuning below .125.

I, too, hand out rare grids.  Hell, I _live_ in one (at least for
another 22 days....)  If I'm operating from here or mobile in one
of the "Navaho Grids", AND .125 is getting busy, I'll move up to
a 'non-channel' freq. -- usually .142.5.  After one or two contacts,
I'll be on the prop logger, anyway.

(Once last year, in a Big Es opening I tried an experiment:  I started
calling CQ and identifying my DM68 grid on .230.  After every 5 or so
contacts, I moved up another 2 or 3 kcs.  When the band died, I was
operating at a good Q-rate on .274  -- which I believe was improper,
because I had moved into _another_ sub-band -- the non-Ham, computer-
to-computer freqs, IIANM.)

73
Jonesy
-- 
  | Marvin L Jones       | jonz         |  W3DHJ   |  linux
  |  Gunnison, Colorado  |  @           |  Jonesy  |    OS/2     __
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