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Deliberate QRM et al..Thursday Sep 17, 2009
A personal plea from DX World of Ham Radio:
Readership of dx-hamspirit.com is now vast – it’s through this channel a personal plea is issued in the hope of at least restricting the most unsavoury, ongoing aspect of Ham Radio – Deliberate QRM.
It’s the bugbear of thousands. The operating antics - even now as I write this - are nothing short of disgraceful whenever FT5GA hits the airwaves. UPDATE: Now K4M – Midway
- The level of abuse on the DX Cluster (at times anti – French / now anti-American) is all too evident – either in announcements or on the spotters frequency. Cringeworthy.
- The ear-piercing QRM on the transmit frequency of FT5GA /K4M is 100% childish, selfish and wholly unacceptable. It goes completely against your license terms.
- Callsigns (operators) who should know better are not exempt from the deliberate QRM.
It’s not just the Glorioso DXpedition which has to contend with this overall form of deliberate abuse - many other noticeable expeditions of yesteryear have too. K4M – Midway will no doubt be abused too…. UPDATE: they are.
We try to remain impartial at DX World and let everyone have their say, either in the negative or positive with regards any DXpedition, but on personally listening to 48 hours (or is it 72) of QRM during FT5GA, it has proved to me, that now is the beginning of the end of major Dxpeditions if this is the kind of horrendous crap they have to put up with.
Can this disease ever be cleared?
Your thoughts and input are very welcome.
32 Responses to “Deliberate QRM et al..”
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Bravo Col, Your words are perfect. The European disgrace must stop immediately! The cluster is a major problem too. Stop! Listen! Learn and Behave NOW!
73 de Tim M0URX
Nothing to add, I’ve got the same opinion regarding this issue. I wonder what happened if clusters would have been shut down and forbidden? Too many people forgot about a joy of scanning bands manually, cqing, searching dx themselves. They rip off the hobby for themselves from its best but they can’t see it. Once the hobby becomes shallow like this, no wonder we’ve got all those QRM makers. Sad. And it’s sad we can talk about this but the situation won’t improve anymore.
The noise isn’t much better on CW these days either! The problem, I think, is that people don’t bother learning “operating theory” anymore. I know on the U.S. exams, there is very little about operating technique (I cannot speak for exams anywhere else). The cluster just makes it worse; it should be an accessory to ham radio, not vice versa. I don’t think we should ban clusters, but I do think we need to concentrate on education more. Not sure how we can do this yet, or even if we can do it. Anyway, well said sir! Good to know someone else out there is getting frustrated.
Perhaps, fellow DXers, it is time to “out” the offenders. Some of us know who these operators are, but are too timid to face them face-to-face or to expose them on the air or on the internet. Just as CQ Magazine is now publishing the call signs and names of cheaters–so should all major DX publications. The KC cops and those who cause malicious interference should be publicly identified in the media and reported to the new FCC enforcer. Shame and humiliation can be strong deterrent.
I put these comments on my twitter a couple of hours ago..reapeated here …”I have no idea why but FT5GA is attracting ther kind of idiotic QRM I havent seen in years, its been on 15m 20m and 30m… constant at times”. Someone must live close the the QRM’ers, they must be aware of the jammimg, its impossible to operate this long and not attract attention from other amateurs. Someone must know where the majority of the jamming originates. Its not really worse than years ago in general but this trip seems to be the attraction for more than is normal.
I didnt mention the cluster but in my opinion its nothing to do with the problem. We had this long before the cluster. Its deliberate not random, its not careless or mis advised operators its intentional. We must realise that fact, its not by accident! I forgive people using the wrong VFO or a badly timed CQ thats all part of the hobby. These guys are aware of what they are doing. I often feel to ignore them is the answer, they usually give up, a bit like naughty children they get tired.
I agree that the QRM situation is out of control. Malicious is the correct term. People are less aware of bad behavior in many aspects of life, so this perhaps should not surprise. Respect and ethics decline sadly in many areas of life. FT5GA is a weak signal at my QTH, I need to pick my time to call when it rises out of the QSB. I will not be able to discern if my callsign is being given back. Perhaps this is the revenge of the net and ragchew hams who always feel inferior to and displaced by the contest and DX hams. I don’t believe true DX and contest oriented operators do this, but perhaps I am wrong. If the DX were a stronger signal, the QRM would not be so problematic. If cops would pipe down, the entire issue would be much less severe.
We cannot tolerate this type of behavior which is embarrassing to our hobby and is a breech of international goodwill for all of us. I suggest, for those with the means to record, create samples then forward to appropriate governing bodies to include national organizations like the ARRL and/or international like IARU.
This topic must move to the forward of meeting agendas from local clubs to the international level. This type of behavior has long term consequences.
I fully support W6XK and his suggestion.
73
Scot, KA3DRR
Here is ZL7/N7OU at 7MHz working at the moment and bunch of european “top ops” are calling over and over no matter who he is answering for. They are split however it is same sensless behavior as tuning on his frequency.
They have good antena system and lots of power so the think rules are for little pistols. why wait – he will pick me up in a moment – they will press F1 until hear their callsign. not my call/ then press it again.
that s a modern dx-ing in EU
I really cannot understand why people have fun in making QRM the way I have heard last few days with FT5GA.
You hear it every day actually and to my opinion the best thing to do is to ignore it.
The people calling’stop making QRM’and such make it only worser cause the QRM-ers see their ‘hobby’ does have effect and is triggering people, thats what they want!..course chaos..right?
I agree on learning new ham’s good and social operating techniques but will it be an ensurance for this behaviour, certainly don’t think so!
So, keep it cool..they give up sooner or later.
This is also one of the prices to pay for lowering examinations’ level and killing CW tests to have easy licensing. Quantity never matchs with quality!
Today’s DXing is mostly a crude luck factor – just finding the no deliberate QRM moments – than a technical and/or operating skill one. What a pity :-((
Probably general ignoring and some policemen’s activity less can help to reduce the maniac satisfaction of QRMers, giving them less “real time feedbacks” about their demential actions and a smaller “stage” to perform.
The DX Cluster is not the big problem.
Let us remind ourselves but to others DXpeditions than 14,195 KHz when we heard all the time
“… this is my frequency …” As a serious DXer the Masterpiece is to listen – not to call
Many intruders are certainly aware of the situation and unfortunately,
the threshold in today’s world and society is very low.
Add to that the poor or even completely neglected education.
When I listened yesterday night on 7002 KHz stopped my breath.
This childish behavior which can only be a temporary insanity!
This is also aware of the DX-pedition, but unfortunately,
the number of interferers is ever increasing.
Blame could also be the social environment.
Intruders must rot away his fingers.
I am ashamed of this disturbers!
one of the problems is that people now are running far too much power, in england there are far too many people running more than they are allowed , the power levels that everyone can run should be standardized so as everyone gets a chance, and maybe that way we wont have to listen to so many +40db and +60db carriers jamming these dx stations
Hi all,
Of course, I agree with all the assertions given here above. But hey, let’s be realistic, a volunteer QRM’er would never post his comment here. But at last, there are still some good op’s all over the world, even in “well-known” QRM’er countries. Don’t forget those QRM’ers are only a small portion of the entire community.
I’ve noticed something: the more rare the DXCC is, the bigger the QRM is.
- QRM in all modes (Not only SSB, like yesterday evening on 40CW..Awful)
- QRM from all countries (Europe as usual, but as a simple example, I also heard a few NA misbehaving yesterday evening on 20SSB)
- QRM at any time/frequencies (QRM’er never sleeps….unfortunately)
Is this a way to express his frustration, to avoid the other making the QSO after logging this rare entity into one’s log? Maybe someone’s not happy to call more than 3 times before being answered? More and more, human beings want some quick “return on investment”. So after paying a few thousands dollars for a brand-new transeiver, brand-new non-legal amplifier, etc, one’s may think he must/has to be in the log at the first calls. Is this also due to this long low-solar activity transforming even a “local” expedition into a real fight (E44M recently for Eu stations)?
Anyway, there must be other reasons. But all of them could never justify this poor attitude, definitely never.
But what can we do in front of such unpolite attitude?
- Education first, but this is rather a long term aspect involving also local administrations. And in any cases, it is already too late for today’s active “hams” (What an example and shame for the SWL’ers who wish to pass their exam !).
- Repression, maybe, but how can we be sure to identify someone precisely? And if done, what could happen to him? Does the local administration really care of this?
- Ignorance to those QRM’ers. Certainly, but this is a somehow a “passive” attitude.
- DX expedition’s attitude change (?)
– by targetting more an area and/or number when calling.
– by preparing more the propagation openings, trying to content everybody at announced certain times and frequencies
– by making an “on-air” black-list of call-signs (something like “XX0xx, you are on my black list”). This may calm down the pile-up a bit, but needs to be repeated for all DX operations.
Comments seen on the Cluster do reflect also this behavior, but if you don’t like them, ok, just filter them out. There are still some useful things with it.
Anyway, good luck to those chasing Glorioso (as most of us). This is a 3-week expedition, so things should get easier days after days (depending on propagation of course…).
I’m sad, yes. This is a shame, yes. But I do still enjoy the hobby and always try to be more clever than those QRM’ers. This still works!
C U soon in a future “polite” pile-up (Sorry, I’m just dreaming…)
I haven’t heard the FT5GA situation specifically but I personally am embarrassed to be an amateur radio operator as of late as people (mostly Americans it seems) are running way more power than they need to. They are making what could be a calm and reasonable pileup a big mess so that those that are running only 100 watts have no hope to work these stations. I have heard them going over and over and over with their callsigns not even listening to the dx station. For what ? Just to prove that they are better than anyone else. It just proves that they have less skill and have to do it by being arrogant with their displays of power. Shame on them .. with their 40 and 60 over 9 signals. I have been able to make contacts with these dx stations. How .. by having manners and contacting the dx station at a smart time not plastering the band with their callsign over and over with no care that they are making a fool of themselves. It is an embarrassment and maybe these showoffs will run only the power that is needed. It does say that we should use no more power than is necessary. Maybe some of these idiots will notice that some day. Not likely anytime soon … it is an embarrassment to the whole amateur community.
F8DZY supplied this short video of a recording he made. You can see and hear for yourself the QRM.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jsj29Mb4c8c
Hello Col – thanks for the great website.
Interesting discussion about deliberate QRM – I was going to make a comment here, but once I started writing it got too long – if you are interested, please visit :
http://www.qsl.net/gm3woj/dxpeditionqrm.htm
73
Chris GM3WOJ/ZL1CT
I left the shortwave bands in 1977 because of jammers and so called ‘Big Guns’ with a complete lack of behaviour and returned last December, mainly in CW. And guess what?, found the very same situation which stopped me from working on shortwave. Now, back with a similar decent and really modest setup – resonant inverted Vee antennas and an Icom-7000 stripped down to 25 Watts, I’m not leaving the bands again. It’s like repeater jammers, if you talk about them, they become proud of themselves and feeling famous….
I will just ignore them, change the frequency and work somebody else – as of yesterday evening it was R1FJA – and believe me, Franz Josef Land is as interesting to me as a jammed Expedition in the Indian Ocean whose signals are, for whatever reason, weaker than nearby spots in that region of the globe and need far better antennas than I got.
If somebody needs to compensate his testosterone overproduction with big power, bigger antennas (well bigger antennas are just fine), bad signal quality and sociopath behavior by continuous bashing his fellow amateurs, let him go with it ! There’s always some free spot on the bands or a cold (!) beer or both.
Ahh, I’m sure it has been discussed – sometimes it is just more effective to switch off that damned computer and scan the band – you’d be surprised how many rare dx is being workable besides the expedition hype.
73 Peter DK5DC/AA6HM – and English is NOT my native tongue
The control ops need to monitor calling frequencies
Those who jam or are too stupid to figure out split and call on top get blacklisted and any QSOs deleted from log and their calls published on website on a regular basis during DXpedition
No excuses
And this rule needs to be announced before the DXpedition starts
To Brian KI6HT:
In the beginning, this might sound like a good idea, but this is not something that can be realized in the real world..
You would need lots of “pilot Stations” (or better call them correction officers) for each band, probably more than stations calling in the pile-up..
Does not sound feasible, does it?
I agree with the “blacklist” idea, but two problems…how do you determine the call of the jammer to be blacklisted, and then if you tell the person they’re blacklisted, they’ll just intentionally QRM the remainder of the DXpedition :-(
Maybe the DXpeditions should change their transmit frequencies from time-to-time on a random basis. In addition, it would be excellent if their new frequency WASN’T posted on the cluster.
I haven’t heard FT5GA here yet, and with the solar minimum, I’m guessing I won’t get a chance to work them. Maybe next time.
Dave
jammers could easly infame others by using busted calls – think about it as it is hapennin now without blackilst being published
The “Big Guns” operating properly up the band are not the problem. The intentional jammers operating maliciously on the DX freq are. The verbose rant by Peter misses the point. The loud sigs would be quickly disposed of if there was no jamming to slow up the operation. The FT5GA operation has been very slow at times because of the incessant jamming going on. The QSO count seems very low because of it. If this keeps up, perhaps we’ll see less and less rare DX entities put on because no one wants to put a team together at great expense, then have a piddly QSO count. With FT5GA, we may be seeing the death of the grand DX-pedition…then I hope the EU jammers are happy. EU jamming during the call for NA stns this morning on 17M was especially bad, to the extent that FT6GA went QRT because of it.
one radical idea : stop all dxcluster, packetcluster and no links during major contests and dxpedition.
Only real ham who know listening would have a chance to worked the DX without QRM !
Wich Deliberate QRM had VP6DX, BS7H, VU4RG or N8S and how they managed it?.
As Napoleon (Oops, he was French too) said: “there aren´t neither good regiments nor bad regiments, just there are good Colonels or bad Coronels”.
There are good Dxpeditions with good operators and bad Dxpeditions with bad operators.
The english language is not my tongue language.
I too am convinced that the cluster is the biggest, single contributor to the problems we’re suffering. I’m not ignoring the other items such as changes in society, the power/expectations of DXers and lack of solid propagation which have been mentioned, but I think all of these feed into the cluster problem.
The cluster is a QRMing tool on a plate. It is very easy to think of it as an aide, but it is lowering the challenge and intensifying pile ups as well – really it’s three problems in one. I would be thrilled if there was a major issue with the cluster for a day. The hobby is fascinating and full of surprises when there are no spots.
The FT5GA operator on 17m earlier today was awesome. Credit where it’s due to this expedition, which has been mounted with the knowledge that radio hams will react bitterly and churlishly to even the slightest shortcomings of the operators. It is so unfair to them; they are there for us after all. It’s reassuring to see consensus about deliberate QRM here on Col’s forum, where ham spirit is alive and kicking.
With each passing dxpedition I think it can’t get worse.
In the last 24 hours I believe it did.
What the hell do these jammers think they are accomplishing? I am not talking about the person who makes a mistake and forgets to hit the split button (we’ve all done that).
On 17 mtrs today every time the op asked for outside EU the tuning frenzy was about the worst I have heard yet. Do they think it’s funny? In the end they don’t deprive anyone of a Q on a 3 week expedition. All they do is frustrate people who will come back later and make the Q. And in the process, they take down our great hobby just a little bit more. And while it used to be mostly ssb ops who were the biggest culprits, today we saw that on cw, even RTTY too. I don’t ever remember rtty jammers.
But let’s face it, this is a web site for DXers who enjoy the hobby. I doubt many of the lids are reading these great posts.
We are preaching to the choir.
Let’s hope the operation from KH4 meets better manners next month.
73
Don
N1DG soon to be /kh4
Verbose rant eh ?. At least I did not blame the Americans or Europeans in general being jammers. And I did not blame the big guns in general being rude. Its those who just think they own the bands and always request the full service.
And sorry, I’m not able to express this situation in 2 short sentences without being rude myself.
Which does not change the situation, Jamming and bad behaviour of people having the resources to do so makes me angry.
Hi All !
Intentional QRM is unfortunately nothing new, and is only getting worse because the general ham population has increased with low level licenses.
IMHO, one first step to take is to limit the cluster access, as well as webcluster like DXsummit, with real passwords. All the F0OL, F0CUS, F6XXX, HB9XYZ, GL0RIE and so on would not be able to insult the ops.
It should not be possible to connect to ANY cluster without being password identified.
Who can say he never made a mistale and called on top of the DX for “wrong VFO” : it has happened to me, and I will have corrected that asap. Obviously, this is unintentional.
As for identifying the QRMers, it is difficult, unless there is a traceable IP that WILL BE TRACED. Internet access providers will not normally give the origin of an IP, unless hams are working there and do ‘illegally”. That is for the cluster cowards.
For on air QRM, this is even more difficult. The are no bad DXpeditions ops, some are better than others. Haven’t we (some of us) been beginners at some stage too at the other side of a HUGE pile-up ? And the guys on FT5 are not all mere beginners : they actually do very well.
Education is the first step, but how many times have we repeatedly heard the same call, always calling on top of the DXpedion, expedition after expedition ?
Remember the criticisms were already out BEFORE the operation. 99% of people have no idea whatsoever of the environment surrounding this long awaited effort (not talking of the island itself, but all the legal aspects).
Selfishness and unjustified frustration will never be eliminated. Hams are like any other groups : some good ones, some bad ones.
I have no solution to this situation. Not sure how much intentional QRM I had when I was on TO5FJ, and QRM does depend on how rare the entity is. Who would jam a EA5 or a K4 ?
73
Paul F6EXV (ex FR0EUT/G in 1981 !)
Well Paul, I wouldn’t agree that QRM level i straightly dependant on how rare the entity is. Rare dx atracts hams – thats for sure. But poor signal and low rate (what is sometimes out of expeditioners control) pushed frustrated ops to such behavior even more often. I dont remember much QRM on 5K0T and VK9GWM lightweight expedition runned by excellent ops. Todays N7OU activity from ZL7 is also rather smooth compared to ZL7T. Same entity but Bill with his 100W and vertical looks to be much more effective.
Bottomline – jamming can not be tolerated under any condition.
It was noticeable earlier today on 40m CW, the K4M op was actually forced off the band due to deliberate EU QRM.
One of the ops on Midway currently [Don N1DG] left a reply (four up from this one) during the recent FT5GA expedition – he wasn’t wrong, was he?
Some argue it’s to do with “CB-style operators causing the problem”…
…on 40m CW?
No, this is seriously poor operating from those who have a perverse enjoyment in ruining the art of Dxpeditioning.
I have just been sat listening to it again, jamming and swearing, on cw as some one said is this the end of dxpeditions if this is to happen everytime a rare one comes on the air ? i hope not, but for people with 100w and limited antennas i very much think so. on a short note is your chat still going col ?