July 28,2023
At the conclusion of my CW POTA activation of K-1518 today I issued the QRT QRT DE ... TY ES 73 to catch any lingering folks before wrapping up as well as to people who listen in on activation. I heard a "GUD" come back. I remember working a callsign with that suffix before and sent a "GUD?". Got a "GUD RIDANCE " [sic] back. FWIW: The response was at about 5wpm. This is a first one for me. Since I was wrapping up my activation and headed to run an errand, I did nothing further and hoped it would be an isolated incident. That was not to be.
Aug 10, 2023
I was activating K-3519 today and the bands were sparse around 1700UTC. This was my second park in a 3 park sequence for the day. I was putting out CQs on 20M SSB (running 10W). Suddenly a station came on with strong digital noise and some cackling like sounds that lasted for about a minute or so. I had already quite a few contacts and nothing but time on my hands before moving to the next park that day. Once they were done with the QRM, I continued to put out CQs. After every CQ sequence they would repeat the noise again. I never acknowledged the noise, but continued to go on as if nothing was wrong. But I am happy to say I prevailed as after about 5 to 7 repetitions, whoever it was got tired and went down the band to QRM someone else. Sometimes malicious QRM can provide much needed break from the monotony of POTA activation!
Later on I find that the digital noise was very similar to the one described in this Youtube video
Since that time I have had a few instances where someone would send LID during my CQ activations. Fortunately to date, the QRM has not managed to derail an activation yet.
Upon conferring with the folks at QRZ, this does not seem isolated; but fortunately, nor is it widely prevalent. There are apparently people who take perverse pleasure in disrupting POTA activations or ranting on POTA activators. The universal consensus is to ignore the trolls.
May all your POTA activations be QRM free!
No comments:
Post a Comment