A lot of people love to claim FM transponders are the root of all evil. I find that it is operator behaviors that dictate the civility of a particular pass, not the transponder design. Many of my friends who have operated portable have made 10-20+ contacts, in an organized fashion, on a 15 minute pass. It can be done. As the old saying goes "it only takes one bad apple to spoil the bunch."
One of the unfortunate consequences of this bad behavior is the discouragement it gives to our newer operators. I have had people tell me "if satellites are like contesting, I want nothing to do with it." I can usually change their mind by giving examples of more civil exchanges. If it had not been for encouragement and guidance from others with more experience, I might have been one of those frustrated stations that never tried satellites again after hearing the pileup.
We learn. We press onward.
73 Clayton W5PFG
On 2/23/2016 11:17, Kevin M via AMSAT-BB wrote:
If a station in a rare grid is on an FM satellite, running 5 watts... and he starts to have a little trouble getting into the bird to answer folks because of some interference, someone keying up, etc... when everyone starts calling him... they all keep keying up and clashing signals... NO ONE is heard and it makes matters WORSE! Just because you don't hear a signal coming back from the satellite DOES NOT MEAN that the UPLINK FREQUENCY IS CLEAR. With 5-6 stations all trying to key up and call at once, nothing gets through but noise, if that...
But one guy finally gets through and you hear him calling the station. Then everyone thinks, "Well, I'm not going to get left out, so I better get right in there!" (And to make matters worse, you give a NIIICCCE LOOOONGGG CALLLL.) Then everyone else keys up and tries... and again, nothing but noise. Until another signal dominates and gets through and here we go again... and this keeps happening over and over and over and over!
In the meantime, the poor rare grid station is trying his damnedest, but he cant get past all the strong stations calling HIM!!! The fact that YOUR station is full duplex doesn't matter... it's the same as a DX pileup on HF. YOU CAN'T HEAR HIM IF YOU KEEP CALLING!
Remember he's very likely LOW POWER! PLEASE... let the rare station RUN THE PILEUP... WAIT... LISTEN, LISTEN, LISTEN!!! It's the key to DX on HF and the same on satellites. Put your competitive, macho egos in park and let the other guy go first and finish his QSO... it's the BEST WAY to clear out the list of callers and GET YOUR CHANCE.
And another thing... It's one thing to blind call a rare station, ONCE... ONE SHORT CALL... BEFORE HE APPEARS. A way to let people on the bird know, 'Attention: rare station alert! Listen up!' But it's a completely different matter to just keep calling and calling so you can get to be the FIRST to work him... THAT'S SELFISH and RUINS it for EVERYONE! And it certainly doesn't make a bit of sense to keep calling and calling ONCE HE HAS ALREADY APPEARED ON THE PASS!!!
The simple logic boils down to this... If you keep calling, he cannot answer. And the harder you try, the more you cut your own throat. Get it?!!!
X^(
73, N4UFO
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