Hi folks,
When I first started working sats I used HTs so I was limited to 5 watts. In order to get into AO-85 easily which had the antenna connection issue that detuned it, I started using a 50 watt mobile radio. Since then I have often used 50 watts to ensure my signal gets in consistently even on sats that don't need it.
More recently I have noticed people no longer wait for a rover to reply to someone who called them. Instead, someone will call a rover and then someone else will call the rover immediately afterwards. This is not normal. People used to wait for the rover to respond.
At the same time, I know of a sat op who only had 5 watts and I heard this sat op not wait for a rover and call them immediately after someone else called the rover. I speculate that this sat op with only 5 watts started doing this because they could not get through at all in other way due to many people using over 5 watts.
So I think it's possible more and more people using higher power has backfired.
Since then I have been experimenting with using lower power, 10 watts, 5 watts. It can be frustrating because others are still using higher power and it's hard to get in.
I am not here to tell anyone what they must do. I don't think there are any absolutes in how one must operate and there are lots of variables that make different styles necessary,
But I do want to suggest anyone who usually uses high power consider times they might try not using high power.
At the very least I plead to people to give rovers a chance to respond before calling the rover.
Of course FM sats are inherently subject to being overloaded by multiple signals, but if many people model behavior that lets more people make contacts, it is possible to overcome some of that weakness.
73, John Brier KG4AKV