My personal gripe list. The things that I hear and annoy me.
Replies to my CQ that are significantly faster than the speed I’m sending. I send usually at 20 to 22 wpm but reduce my speed if someone calls me at a slower speed. A faster reply is just bad manners.
Operators who just launch into CQing without a couple of “QRLs” and listening to see if the QRG is occupied. Twice last week idiots moved in on top of me. (Both from the same EU country – I’ll not say which.) And I'll refrain from commenting about the SK5... who launched into CQing on top of E51UFF (N Cook Is) yesterday without checking first and stuck there for ages.
QRO operations in the QRP sections of the bands. And, yes I know these sections are not mandatory or protected but last year the ARRL Centennial stations were often running split ops in these and one would hope the ARRL would know better.
Stations who call me well off my TX QRG. I know that with some QRP radios getting ‘netted’ isn’t always easy and I can accept that that, but quite often I get calls from stations with good commercial radios that just haven’t bothered with that final tweak to the VFO.
Awful straight key CW. I very happily copy slow CW, but some of what I hear has no rhythm, no proper spacing and ‘dragged’ dashes. I’ve not used a straight key for years but wouldn’t have got through the test for my class A if my CW had been as poor as some I now hear.
Stations that call me when I’m clearly still in a QSO and listening to another station (often weak and QRP) and make it difficult for me to copy the station I’m in contact with.
And then there’s the station calling – “CQ CQ CQ CQ CQ CQ CQ CQ CQ de XXXXX CQ CQ CQ……”. I’ve usually lost interest after about the fifth CQ or fallen asleep, or missed the callsign because of QSB at the moment it is given. The important bit of a CQ call is the station callsign.
Rant over! And I'm pretty sure none of the above applies to QRPC members. :-)
