[Fists] When Zero Beat Is "Wrong"

[AC5SH at aol.com]

O K Y'all humor me
 
Here is one for the guy who admitted he is a little new. I'm still a little  
new myself but here is a trick I found in a book somewhere (probably an old  
version of the ARRL Operating Manual but I'm not sure, I am sure this is in  
print in more than one place) and have found it to work in actual use. Again if  
this is old hat to you forgive and ignore me here.
 
Aside from working "split", when a station is running a pile and obviously  
listening a ways up or down the band (or even on another band) sometimes  one 
hears an ongoing qso where the two stations are not zero beat and wants to  
work one or the other of them when the qso ends. In this case, one would  zero 
the station he does NOT want to work. Especially if your own setup is not  the 
big gun variety, you want your sig right where the station you want to work  is 
listening and that is where the station you don't want (the one he is  
finishing up with) is transmitting. Even 50 cps off on your transmit frq, can  make 
the difference in getting him or not. If the station you want is a long way  
off, use RIT or even split as needed to hear after you get your xmit frq where  
you want it. One way is to put vfo a on one of them and vfo b on the other, 
then  you can flip which vfo you transmit with depending on which station calls 
qrz  when they are done. If you must call way off to get him and it looks 
like  it's going to be a ragchew, ask him to zero up on you to minimize the qso's 
 occupied bandwidth. If it's just a basic qso like the extreme case of Field  
Day, there's no need to worry about it; just swap info and move on.
 
Like N1EA said earlier about the very narrow filters, you can use them to  
pinpoint the place you want to transmit when needed. You keep narrowing the  
filter and tweaking the knob and pretty soon, if you're off at all, you lose the  
guy so it's very precise.
 
Also, some guys will be listening off their xmit frq when cq'ing. Maybe  they 
left the RIT on. You'll have to move around some to make them here you if  
you really want them.
 
Of course, you want to be courteous and call the station that is "running"  
if one of them is but if it's a normal qso and they are both signing off, you  
call the one you want. I'm sure someone will think you should qrl? first but I 
 have found this to work and if you time it right, you don't interfere with  
anyone. If you don't care which one, then you just wait to see if one cq's or  
calls qrz and answer him. If they both clear off, then you call qrl? and cq  
between their transmit frequencies. About half the time, one of them answers 
you  but this is slow and they don't know you were even listening to them. I 
always  answer when someone calls me but I pass up a lot of cq's.
 
On the split thing, in the case of trying to bust a DX pileup, well, that's  
an art. The DX will be moving his listening point around a bit and you have to 
 listen to the stations he is working and figure out where to put your sig in 
the  pile so he will hear it. 
 
And that's my partly coherent ramble for the next little while :)
73
Tim, AC5SH



**************************************See AOL's top rated recipes 
(http://food.aol.com/top-rated-recipes?NCID=aoltop00030000000004)