But I've still found time to turn the rig on an hour or so each evening and tune around. I've been chasing Maldive Island and Seychelles. I've worked both before but haven't been able to sneak a QSL yet. Both have had really nice signals but the pileups have been very poorly behaved. In fact, good ol' K1ASS even made an appearance last evening. That brightened everyone's spirits, of course. Most times I turned off the radio or tuned away...just too frustrating to listen to the mess.
But this afternoon was a different story. Good signals again, fairly well behaved mobs...until...someone repeatedly kept calling directly on top of S79GM's frequency even though he was working "up". Now that wasn't anything new, it was happening all the time, with the obligatory response from the traffic cops. But this fellow just wasn't taking the hint. He kept on and kept on.
Some posts started appearing on the DX spotting networks. Still, he kept on.
Just as I was about to curse out loud and see if the guy had an email address listed on QRZ, I saw something on his profile that made me stop in my tracks. "Deaf CW operator".
Oh man, what am I doing? Yeah, it's still a pain to have to listen through him calling, but it sort of put things in a different perspective. Here's a hobby where listening is 99% of the game and this guy can't hear a thing. Yet he's able to participate. OK, so he wasn't where he needed to be, but in my haste I had gotten all worked up. If QRZ wasn't around I would have no way of knowing that the man is deaf and I might've sent some foolish email chastising him for poor operating.
Makes me realize that, number one, I have no business doing something like that. It's not my place and I'm glad I glanced at his profile before sending something stupid and that I'd regret. Number two, sometimes things aren't exactly as they seem and I need to not get so worked up in the first place over something that's out of my control. And, number three, even though I was still able to work the stations I was after just a couple of minutes later, it didn't seem nearly as important anymore.
3 comments:
Thanks for sharing that valuable lesson with us all Ed. Things aren't always what they first seem.
Vy 73 de Jeff KE9V
I don't get it - he's deaf but he has some way of knowing when the DX replies to him yet he couldn't hear other ops telling him "Up"? As a DXer going after a very rare station, does he not consider the very likely possibility that the station is operating split? Spots to the DX Cluster typically mention split operation - another way of knowing.
His being deaf, unfortunate as it is, doesn't justify the QRM he caused a lot of people. His being deaf doesn't preclude him from being the one who's the jerk.
Yes, I see your point, John. I don't know what means he's using to decode CW, whether that's some sort of skimmer or other device. His profile doesn't say.
And, no, it doesn't necessarily justify the QRM he was causing, but the notion I had in mind was you never quite know the situation until you've walked the proverbial "mile in another man's shoes".
I remember being rear-ended by a driver not long after I'd bought a brand new car (the first "new" car that I'd ever bought). The damage was minimal but I was in the process of blowing my top at the guy and kept telling him to get out of his car to look at the damage. When, in my rage, I walked up to his car almost ready to pull him out, I realize that he had no legs and had some apparatus to help him drive.
The guy didn't hit me because he couldn't drive or operate the appratus, he hit me because he wasn't paying attention (I saw him with his head down in my rear-view mirror as he hit me).
Still, you're right, he probably should have known better, but my discovery of his handicap didn't stop me from feeling a bit sheepish.
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