"Doug Smith W9WI" wrote in message
...
Caveat Lector wrote:
There is this to understand

All of the below is old hat and has been going on for a long time -- 30
years that I know of.
No worse now as compared to then.

I would disagree with that assessment.

There are a lot of things in ham radio that aren't worse than they were 30
years ago. But this isn't one of them.

I got my license in 1973 and I clearly remember a day when if you would
listen, you could almost always find the guy the DX was working.

I have no problem with finding the guy the DX is working. Nor do others
here in our DX club.


Yeah, there were plenty of people who didn't know that - who would just
pick a transmit frequency at random & just call there - but they didn't
call continuously *every time* the DX stopped transmitting.

Yes they did now and they did then.


Indeed, while I hate to join the "I hate packet" bandwagon there really
does seem to be a correlation between continuous calling and the explosive
growth of spotting nets.

The spotting nets give a lot of info that was not available in the old
days -- working country X only, working district X only, Up x to x freq,
wrked em at XXX, QSX X , QSY to Band X, DX station is QRT, etc.

So for the intelligent DXer this should bring more order out of chaos. But
alas it seems to have helped very little -- so perhaps it is not the
cluster hounds who are the problem as evidenced with the unbelievable "Who's
the Dx" queries. Obviously these guys aren't looking at the cluster. Nor is
the lid who is calling on the DX frequency -- one look at the packet cluster
would reveal that --provided the lid knows what "he is working split" means.

Alas chaps -- same o same o, I fear

Caveat Lector -- Honor Roll, WAZ, etc.

--
Doug Smith W9WI
Pleasant View (Nashville), TN EM66
http://www.w9wi.com