Americans and Europeans are listening for "rare" openings. Strong stations should call off the calling freq as it's easy to tune around (or use a spectrum analyzer) and find 'em.
An example would be New Zealand opening-up and calling CQ. SA would be another I've heard.
We don't call on the call frequencies because A) we're plentiful and we'd just step all over each other with the amount of traffic.
So the upshot is that you want to stay out of the way and listen for the rare traffic. They most likely won't work you first because of the pileup they get when they open-up. So working state-to-state is best done anywhere but on the calling freq.
Calling Frequency Ettiqutte
in Ham Radio
Posted
Americans and Europeans are listening for "rare" openings. Strong stations should call off the calling freq as it's easy to tune around (or use a spectrum analyzer) and find 'em.
An example would be New Zealand opening-up and calling CQ. SA would be another I've heard.
We don't call on the call frequencies because A) we're plentiful and
we'd just step all over each other with the amount of traffic.
So the upshot is that you want to stay out of the way and listen for the rare traffic. They most likely won't work you first because of the pileup they get when they open-up. So working state-to-state is best done anywhere but on the calling freq.
Does that help at all?