Radio Amateur KC2HMZ wrote:

Hmmm...lemme see...we're faced with the possibility of having a lot of
newcomers with little or no practical experience WRT radio wave
propagation on the HF bands, and thus little knowledge on which to
base selection of a frequency band on which to begin making contacts
at any particular time.

Back in the early days of my HF career, I figured that if the band seems
empty, well either
propagation is out or everyone's asleep or at work or such. In any
event, there's nobody
to qso with, so check other bands.

After a while, one figures out that on say ten meters, you can (when the
sunspots are in)
talk to Texas from NJ, but not Ohio. That the coverage looks more like
a ring instead
of a disc. Which also means that the ham in Texas can hear a ham in
Ohio that you
cannot hear. Thus you could QRM a Ohio to Texas QSO while doing a QSO from
NJ to California. Thus you should realize that the Texan isn't talking
to himself, but
to someone you cannot hear. And QSY up or down a little. But say
you're using
a kilowatt linear to QSO from NJ to California, and the Texan is only
using 50 watts
and is S1 on your receiver and thus you don't know that he's there. BUt
things like this
happen, and it is understood that it is not malicious.