Bad Manners

Not much radio time over the past several days. I was able to spin the dial a bit Sunday evening. To my great surprise the two loudest stations on 20 meters were both DX. I suppose it was a sign of how bad conditions have been lately that the pileups were insane for each. These weren’t DXpeditions from rare countries, either; one was from the Netherlands, the other a special event station from the Dominican Republic. Not difficult countries to add to the log.

Yet both were flooded with calls. No doubt hams like me who haven’t had a decent DX log entry in weeks and were desperate to add one.

What blew me away was the horrible band hygiene, for lack of a better term, so many of these callers had. After each CQ, the calls back would stretch on for 10 seconds or so, each late call one-upped by another. Worse, so many operators would call in the midst of a QSO, or before the DX station had called CQ again. Why would you double a station you want to call you back?

The cherry on top was a couple ops who would attempt to hijack the pileup. “This is XYX123 and you are 59 in Florida, QSL?” without being called by the DX station. One guy would repeat this multiple times.

I operate with the standard 100 watts and a wire. If I hear people in my area being called, I have no fear about jumping into a pileup. I’ve had some pretty good luck picking the right moment and making a good contact after just a couple calls. And I’m comfortable being patient, calling again and again as long as needed, if the pileup seems manageable.

Given the abhorrent behavior last night I didn’t even try. I bagged a few POTA contacts and called it a night.

At the risk of coming off as a Sad Ham, I do not understand why people are so rude on air. Forget the lack of manners to your fellow chasers. It is flat out disrespectful to the DX station if you aren’t following their lead. There is no obligation for them to call you, why would you annoy them? I know the general advice is to work these bad actors to clear them out of the pileup for weaker/more polite stations. If I’m ever lucky enough to transmit from a DX entity, I would be tempted to ignore these fools. I didn’t reward bad behavior when I was raising toddlers. I don’t see a reason to reward it now.