[South Florida DX Association] [RTTY] Blacklisting over zealous callers

[Bill Marx]

>From a thread on the RTTY Reflector regarding a DX Operator bereating 
someone who called on top of someone else....On purpose or unknowingly...
-Bill W2CQ


ORIGINAL MESSAGE:

On Wed, 11 Apr 2007 17:48:33 -0500, "Robert Chudek  - K0RC"
<k0rc at citlink.net> wrote:

>I have not participated in  a DXpedition, so I'm not certain how much QRM
abuse I could tolerate.

==================

Well, I have, and I think this entire thread is from the wrong  perspective.

To bring a pile up to a complete halt in order to chastise a station is a
total waste of time.  Since this thread is about RTTY, I'll leave it at 
that,
but it still is not widely different from CW or SSB.

While all on "this side" of the pile up may think it's warranted to send 
the
blacklist message, it reflects an inexperienced operator, or one who simply
does not know how to control the pile up (or his temper).  Running a pile 
up
from the DX side is something you have to experience.  Take the  beginning 
of
CQWW RTTY and multiply it by a minimum factor of 10.  From the  DX side you
have very little choice other than to work the ones you can print  and get 
them
out of the pile.  It may be a "shame" that the "lid" has the  strongest
signal, but so what?  You haven't got time to fart around with  nastygrams. 
It's
easier to work him so he goes away.  Most people on  "this side" of the pile
most likely couldn't copy the guy anyway.  And with  RTTY, it's even more
difficult than other modes, even with a 300Hz filter and  the best decoding 
device,
be that hardware or software.

Frankly, the non-stop callers, jammers, cops, etc are FAR MORE of a
disruption to a pile up than a VERY few stations who dupe.  Many people, 
including
Doug, TQS, who is on Swain's, AA5AU, etc, have published excellent 
guidelines
on how to "behave" on this side of a pile up.  Unfortunately,  the "me, me, 
me"
mentality prevails.

The topic of this thread is certainly not new.  Before we even left  for
Agalega, we had a meeting to discuss exactly how to handle the KNOWN abusers 
of
multiple Qs.  The list was extensive, and I would doubt many of you  would 
be
surprised to know the USA lead the count.  Europe had a few, South  America 
a
hand full, and Japan - NONE.  Be that as it may, our unanimous  decision was 
to
work them and move on.  You have to realize, that if you're 
copying/printing
xx1xx, it's because he's strong, get him out of there by  working him!  CW =
5 seconds.  RTTY = 15 seconds.  Big  deal!  It's certainly better than
spending 30-40 seconds to hand type a  rebuke of some sort.  Personally, I 
don't
think things like the "blacklist"  message are common.  How many times do 
you see
that?  Nigh upon to  never.  It's not necessary, not "professional" (IMO), 
and
adds absolutely  nothing to the pile up clearing effort.  It probably made
the Swain's op  "feel" better.  I'm happy for him.

If someone feels it's absolutely necessary to "deal" with the offending
station after the expedition, so be it.  Again, that takes more time and 
effort
than it's worth.  So xx1xx had 8 Qs on 20m RTTY.  What are you  going to do?
Deny him a confirmation.  That serves a great purpose -  not.  This is a 
hobby.
 N8S has over 5000 RTTY Qs.  So how many  stations are blacklisted?  Really 
a
worthwhile endeavor.....

And lest you counter that working xx1xx 8 times kept 7 others from making
their one-and-only RTTY Q, I direct you to far more people who get some sort 
of
thrill from working them 9-band RTTY, which serves no purpose whatsoever,
other  than ego feeding - unless, of course, your only 17m Q was RTTY.  But 
to
say  "wouldn't that be a rare one" for 160 RTTY is beyond me.  Rare for 
what?
A competition of 1, me thinks.

Bottom line:  The DX can/will do what they wish.  The rest of the  world
needs to back off, relax, and remember this is a hobby.  They can  also plan 
to be
DX themselves one day.  Then they can send all the  blacklist messages they
want....

Off soapbox, returning you to your normal programming....

Steve, N3SL, and part of 3B6RF