Comments on: Deliberate QRM et al..

By: ian

ian — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 07:04:12 +0000

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 ?

By: MM0NDX

MM0NDX — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 18:45:42 +0000

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.

By: Dave

Dave — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 13:40:20 +0000

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.

By: F6EXV

F6EXV — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 16:35:35 +0000

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 !)

By: Peter DK5DC/AA6HM

Peter DK5DC/AA6HM — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 08:40:36 +0000

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.

By: Don N1DG

Don N1DG — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 01:01:13 +0000

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

By: Michael G7VJR

Michael G7VJR — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 23:26:23 +0000

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.

By: Truedxer

Truedxer — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 20:46:52 +0000

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.

By: Lee F5MUX

Lee F5MUX — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 20:24:00 +0000

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 !

By: Ray

Ray — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 14:34:51 +0000

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.

By: Tom

Tom — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 13:11:03 +0000

jammers could easly infame others by using busted calls – think about it as it is hapennin now without blackilst being published

By: Dave AA1VX

Dave AA1VX — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 23:20:50 +0000

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

By: shady

shady — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 22:09:20 +0000

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?

By: brian KI6HT

brian KI6HT — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 20:12:19 +0000

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

By: Peter DK5DC/AA6HM

Peter DK5DC/AA6HM — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 19:41:56 +0000

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