Anyone else sick of POTA, Special Events, & State QSO Parties? Let's go WARC!

[ThaDood]

OK, I'm going to rant, but I for one will be kind of glad when Cycle 25 finally takes a dump. When you do want to sched a QSO with someone on 160M, 75/80M, 40M, 20M, 15M, and especially 10M, it seems that there's always some sort of special events on-air. Well, those special event stations are fine, but when they just come on the FREQ that you are on, and ignore you and your friends, and just start calling for whatever event they are doing, that's gauche. Just last night, myself, and two other ops on 10M, were FREQ hopping to get away from wherever events were last night. This XYL came on FREQ and started her event, while we were on QSO'ing. We kept saying, "The frequency is in use!", but we were ignored. And, I know that she had to hear my friends, running like +300W, where I was running barefoot. So, ran around for like a third time to find a decent FREQ, and finally found that the 10M Call FREQ was empty 28.400MHz. (Go figure...) Now granted, some of these stations are running split VFO FREQ's, but isn't it proper etiquette to first ask, "Is this frequency in use?", before going on with your event, when you know that propagation is wide-open? Well, apparently not anymore. Fortunately, we do have a few alternatives, like the 17M, 12M, and even the 5 channeled 60M, bands, I believe that contests are not allowed on those. Case in point, ARRL Field Day rules, under OBJECTIVES, lists the allowed bands.  https://www.arrl.org/field-day   Not the WARC Bands and 60M. (This, is just an example.) Other alternatives??? VHF and above. Sure, there are those VHF / UHF, & microwaves, contests, but for the most part you will not be bothered on 6M, 2M, 222MHz, 432MHz, and up, in SSB, AM, whatever mode. And, I'm trying to get more activity around here on those bands, besides just FM 2M, anyway. Point is, that's an option. I don't operate in the HAM Bands that often, maybe a few times a month on weekends, but is anyone else sick of chatting with a friend and having a special event station barge-in? I can't be the only one.     

[tennessee]

I agree on contesting. SOTA and POTA don't bother me so much, as it seems those ops are laid back. Otherwise, weekends on 10 meters can be ridiculous. Last weekend was so bad that I heard SSB way up in the FM portion of 29 MHz. Good grief. Forget about having a regular CW chat during CW contest weekends. 12 meters is good, but it's crowded there, too. The CW portion is very small.

30 meters is my go to most times, anyway. All sorts of weird stuff there to enjoy, as well as easy going QSOs. Installed a full sized rotary dipole atop the tower and it's a blast. The ability to null noise and annoying ops is a plus.

A little more courtesy and asking if the frequency is in use (QRL?) would be nice. As you said, it's rarely an issue on VHF & UHF.

[BoomboxDX]

I suppose some of this is regional in nature. I'm just an SWL in the NW US, and I tune the HF ham bands a lot. I don't hear a lot of crowding on any of the HF bands. The exception, of course, being the CQWW contest the weekend before Halloween. But that was the exception noted here where I am located. Most afternoons, even on weekends, 20M has plenty of open frequencies, and it's the same with 15 and 10. 40M at night is never crowded. Sometimes 80M is a ghost town.

And this is when I will hear stations from Florida, Texas, and the Midwest, and even Oz, South Africa or Rarotonga, so it's not my equipment or antennas.

I just think that the bands are less crowded than they were two decades ago, or even during the last solar cycle, although being in the PNW probably affects how many signals I hear on a given afternoon, evening, or morning.

I do hear a lot of POTA. Most of that activity seems reasonable. I've heard a few call "is this frequency in use?" before starting their CQ POTA thing.

From my perspective, the QSO parties, contests, POTA etc. are keeping the bands alive. Because I clearly remember back in the 1980's and 1990's when I would tune my FRG-7, DX-440, or DX-390 and 20M and 15M would be almost wall to wall during the late afternoons every weekend, and 40M and 80M would be more packed with SSB and CW at night. It just isn't that way anymore.

[europirate]

I gave up on HF amateur radio a long time ago, esp in the UK where it often appears to be filled with Foundation Licence (25w PEP) operators running linear amps.

I only use VHF, 6m & 4m (70Mhz is awesome BTW) and UHF, 70cm and 23cm.  Maybe the call on QO-100 too.

Sadly 2m is no better than a CB band in the UK.

[RadioDead]

We started to loose interest when "black boxs" started arriving in huge numbers, The days of modifiying old ww2 radios or ex pmr radios for ham use or even building your own from scratch seems now to be confined to class D/E Tx's and linear amps? Yes there are some very good RX's available at reasonable prices, needed now to help combat man made QRM, Even with shed loads of ferrites and filters on the mains supplies and on the aerial leads reception is difficult at times on HF. We won't even go into how bad some operaters are and don't bother to ask "is this frequency in use"    We have gone over to the dark side.

[europirate]

We have gone over to the dark side.

You and me both - 95% of my radio time is now here

[Gr0undPlan3]

Agree with BoomboxDX, the contests are keeping the bands alive. And if you are trying to get some rare DX, contests are the best time to find them.

Bad operators are going to be bad operators period. Not excusing the LIDS.. 

On the other end, also hate the LIDS that QRM during contests. Tuning up, whistling, etc.

From what I've observed many times, if someone starts stepping on your QSO, ignore them and keep going. LIDS have short attention spans especially if they can't get a reaction. They will move on pretty quickly.

Make a recording, get the callsign and send it to the contest organizers. The LID may very well be DQ'ed from the contest.