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Mal,

So there is low activity on 136 afterall !!!!!!!!! Then how do you think it is "up" here in SM ? I have about 3 stations (that I know of) within a radius of 250km. To Denmark it is 500km which equals the distance between London and Edinburgh. Within this radius I could imagine that there is below 10 stations more or less active.

The lack of activity was the reason for sending a mail to the reflector on april 17 concerning a try to concentrate the activity to certain times. This mail has been completely ignored on the reflector so I thought this was no problem and that the band was always crowded and I (and my receiver) are totally deaf although DCF is 25-30dB over S9 !!!!

Unfortunately I can only be QRV on LF from my summer-QTH due to space and noise problems. Until today I have been out there about 8 weekends this year, listening and calling CQ for hours each time, only broken up by coffee break. This has resulted in that I have worked all the stations I have heard with a grand total of one (1) QSO and that was DL2HRE which was worked in january. Except from these 8 weekends that I have been listening/CQ-ing, I have also only listened a number of times when we have been there without having heard one single station ! I have tried saturday/sunday mornings and afternoons. Maybe I have been unlucky, but one QSO in 4 months is just too little to keep the interest on the high side.

Mal, I agree with you that it is often unnecessary to use QRSS. When I worked RU6LA (on QRSS, my one and only QRSS-QSO) last year (abt 2000km from me) he was perfectly audibly readable so a normal CW-QSO would have been perfectly possible (he also heard me) and had been a distance record for me on normal CW. Besides with normal CW you don't need to sit at the rig all the time, not so with QRSS, just turn up the volume a bit, not much is needed as our ears are "programmed" to hearing CQ:s, even very weak ones. As a matter of fact, last autumn (when the activity seemed a lot better) I actually heard a station calling CQ through the wall when I was outside the house in the garden. I went to the rig and just worked him.

Now the low activity has solved itself very easily for me as the antenna has fallen down.

73 de SM5EUF / Urban in JO78SQ

From: hamilton mal

To: rsgb_lf_group@blacksheep.org

Sent: Saturday, April 19, 2003 6:43 PM

Subject: LF: REAL CW

I call CQ at times on 137.2 khz using real CW, but seldom get a reply although recently I did get a couple of replies from DL and OZ. Their observations are that there is too much QRS and not enough real CW like there used to be.

Most of those that used to be active on LF and are now QRT have gone because of the lack of CW. Why does the LAZY MANS mode prevail when most of those using QRS are good enough signals to work normal CW. All the UA stns active so far including UA9 are all audible with me and could be worked on CW. Its too easy on QRS just using a finger on the keyboard and sitting back watching. Even those with ASYMETRICAL EARS surely could manage the odd CW qso.

G3KEV