AW: [Meteor-Scatter] MS Procedures

[Ulrich Hilsinger]

Hello,

Franz van Velzen schrieb:

> I just don't understand Ulli, How did you receive between 1998 and 2001 a
> CQx Call from a
> DX station in, let's say east, while at the same time, a station east of
> yourself was calling
> CQy direction west ? you must have heard that CQ calling station and that
> station must have made it impossible
> for you to receive any DX ? I am typically not very active in random during
> showers exactly because of that.

We never had this problem. The "east/west" rule for period definition 
normally has not been used here in DL, it was common that central Europe 
(and I think the UK also) was transmitting in the second period - the 
other regions were calling first. Beside this, a possible confrontantion 
would have been limited to times with high activity in practice. 
Additionally, it was always possible to shift the frequencies a bit. So, 
only very close-by neighbours in the other period would have been able 
to produce harmfull interferences. Due to the full control of the 
operator over the reception of signals, you allways have been able to 
readjust your RX frequency if you heard some audio from a burst which 
was probably 1 kHz lower...
Of course the situation could have changed with the application of WSJT, 
I personally do not use WSJT and probably will not in the next future. 
The problem with WSJT is that the bandwidth is larger and that you can't 
use your ear and brain as adaptive filter, which can easily seperate two 
signals which are only few 100 Hz away one from each other. 
Nevertheless, if 144.370 would be used ONLY for CQ, it would not be a 
severe problem, if number of stations is not excessive high. One problem 
of course is, that everybody is calling CQ even in central Europe. 
That's perhaps also not making things easier - normally, if frequencies 
are overcrowded, one should not call CQ if one's not a "rare one".... 
Just as known from Sporadic-E, where calling CQ at 144.300 plus minus 
few kHz is a massive "don't do this" for central europeans. For the same 
reason: congestion of 144.300 for nearby stations.
Again, the basic problem is, from my point of view, that in WSJT, you 
only know what your PC monitor shows to you. You have no control over 
what really happens on the frequency, making it difficult to spread out 
a bit around the calling frequency.

So, probably people are right who see the need for a 2nd CQ qrg, perhaps 
3 kHz below 144.370, i.e. 144.367. 144.367 for those calling in the 
first period, 144.370 for those calling in the second period. Those 
which call CQ on 144.367 then should not use CQA/CQB/CQC/CQD/CQE in 
order to not congest 144.370 later, of course ! Perhaps an idea which 
could be be discussed by those guys actively involved in WSJT operation.

> So there is not any reason not to use more than one
> calling QRG and why not
> announce that on the cluster (ie selfspotting) ? (Not completing qso's via

For this special situation, it could be usefull to indicate your CQing. 
Nevertheless, I don't consider it as a appropriate solution on a 
long-term view. Self-spotting is, in principle, allways a bad habbit, 
enoying other cluster users and giving wrong informations to the world, 
regarding for example automatized statistics, etc.

By the way, you are right that I don't know the actual WSJT practice 
from my own experience, my intention was only to give some hints how 
things have been done in earlier days. Sometimes it is easier to invent 
things for the future if you first look at ideas from the past as a good 
or as a bad example. (Me msyelf I'll not use - at least not intensively 
  - digital PC modes for DXing as long as there enough possiblities for 
me to operate myself on one or some of the actually 11 (soon 13) bands 
I'm able to operate.)


73,
Ulrich dh0ghu