Phone (SSB). 1 on 17M, 1 on 20M, and the rest on 40M. Frankly, I am quite surprised that I got them all.

Yes, very difficult propagation conditions yesterday, much harder than on the first day! Maybe that was an advantage in that it kept a lot of competing stations off the air?

The UK and FR stations seem to be doing a better job this year, with good band selections. WM3PEN always does an outstanding job every year.

Just need two of them plus the British and French station. Doing all FT8/FT4 this year.

Evidently some of these 13COL stations don't know when to use split, or don't even know how to use it.

Yep, I've now got all the colonies plus the WM3PEN bonus station on CW.  A couple on 40m and the rest all on 20m CW.  

I've seen the Brit and French stations spotted, but I'm not hearing them here in Texas on my simple wire.  Texas into Europe might be tough with this propagation.

And unfortunately, neither do the LIDS trying to contact them.  K2F was working split on 20m CW this morning.  There were still dozens of stations calling on his transmit freq.  I went to split and went up one KHz and got him on the very first call.

I heard TM13COL working CW split last night, but I could barely hear him and no contact.  Europe is always tough for me from Texas with a simple low wire antenna.

K2F is a challenge.  Clearly hears me on FT8 but no response.

Have picked up a few so far. Mix of SSB & digital. Got WM3PEN on FT4 this morning.

Being new, these events are pretty fun and definitely helping me learn my radio trying to tune in some of the tougher ones and break through.

It's going to be touch and go the rest of the week, the forecast is calling for scattered thunderboomers into next weekend.

MD is the only state I don't have yet.  Can't get a response on FT8 even though PSKreporter has shown me being received.  Can't hear their the phone stations worth a damn.

Felt bad about what I posted and edited it but yeah I can see that they can hear me with a good SNR but no response.

Been trying for an hour.

I need 7 plus great Britain.    I got so sick of the rude continuous pile up going right over the top of GB13COL last night I had to spin the dial.  They’d keep repeating their callsign (2nd and 3rd after each of his CQ for half of them) right over the top of the Brit.  I spun the dial as I couldn’t hear his picked up callsign and signal report if it was me.  Apparently neither could the station he picked up as he would go right to CQ after his pause but no pause of stations repeating their calls over and over.

Probably the worst pile up I ever heard.   I guess he went to calling by numbers later as I saw on DX summit but it sounded like people ignored that too.

Hey, for newbies/dummies like me, what does “split” mean?

I’ve been trying to get the 13col stations but no luck. The only ones left for me.

I think this year was so much easier. Not sure why but I don’t think I used dxsummit last year and literally just hunted channels. Also wasn’t using FT8 then either.

Edit: Now I see what you’re referring to about “split.” Transmit on one frequency and receive on another. Nevermind!

Just got MD on phone while listening through a VT websdr .  He's working fast.

K2F is on 7188 and 14234 currently.

On FT8, as much as I hated to do it, I just manually entered their SNR and would send them their SNR whenever I saw them RR73 or RRR. Waiting on a CQ was pointless.

Finally got K2F

I’ve seen TM13COL spotted but have yet to actually decode him.

There is no question, 13 Colonies is the very limit of amateur radio unbridled carnage, worse than any DX pile-up.

I stopped trying to get most of them. It is sad how bad some of those guys act for a contact.
Picked, cleaned, and put a gallon of black raspberries in the freezer this morning, and stayed off the radio.

The calling multiple times, stepping all over the SES, and ignoring instructions from the SES particularly when calling by numbers is rediculous.   I would start a list of stations who would never get a qso when they are to stupid to follow simple instructions meant to organize the chaos.

I'm afraid that's becoming the norm with any SES or contest of any kind. It happens in POTA constantly. I do have a running list of hunters who I ignore too.

@Caniac_Nation
It means transmitting on a different frequency than is being received. The DX station calls on one frequency, then says "up" or "down", meaning he's listening a few KHz above or below for replies. You do the opposite, listen to him, then reply where he's (hopefully) listening.
Your transceiver manual should show you how to use the "SPLIT" mode. It's usually listed under something like "Operating Split". It can also be done by using the "XIT" function.

Back in the good ol' days when radios glowed in the dark, Novices almost always operated split. Transmitters had to be crystal controlled and few Novices could afford more than 1 or 2 crystals. The license was only good for a year and could not be renewed, so it didn't make sense to spend money for more than a couple of crystals. We called CQ, then tuned up and down past our crystal frequency listening for replies. Since transmitter and receivers were separate pieces of equipment and couldn't be linked together, it was the natural mode of operation.

This is what our crystals looked like. They cost about $3 in 1950s dollars. They could also be bought much cheaper from mil surplus dealers, but were outside the ham bands. They could be taken apart and the frequency raised by grinding the delicate quartz crystal blank. It was tricky, and we shattered a lot of blanks.


I believe it was Collins who first came out with a linkable transmitter and receiver, done by connecting a cable between the two units and making a couple of setting changes. It was a big deal back then, which most couldn't afford.

Was just tooling through the bands and you can probably pick up more now, if you want. I think the eager beaver pile-ups are gone.

I haven't even tried when there is a pileup.  I have no chance. Got lucky with GA being nearly alone on 17m.  Traffic was light for NH and MD this morning, must've been fresh spots.

Got all the rest and WM3PEN on FT8.

Thanks for the info! Never experienced that yet in my 1.5 years of being a ham.

Are you running QRP? I find that I can get through some of the pile-ups with my 100w if I am persistent and vary the timing of my response.

Nope, 100w.

I try to note the station's rhythm, so if he always takes one of the last calls given, I try to be one of the last ones, etc.

Of course, I have to be in the right mood to bother when there's a pile-up. I am not always in the mood, i.e., feeling patient.

I actually kind of enjoy pile-ups.  I have been in hundreds of them over the years. Each one is a chance to practice all of the little tricks of the trade to win. Sharpen your skills. Learn from others. Learn new tricks of your own.

I am traveling and in my truck.  I have a mini hamstick on a tailgate mount.  I have 4 more to go.  Being QRP most of the time you have to learn the tricks to get in.  Now I’m doing it CW so there are a few that don’t apply to SSB. Well maybe you could tune right off from their freq…. It is doable

3 left.  Just got K2E from a Kroger parking lot

Just finished up the core stations all digital this year. Now have to work on the British and French bonus.

I have all 16 stations on phone.  Most on more than one band.  All I need is K2B for all 16 digital.   It might help if they actually worked some FT8.
Oh well.

I got K2B on 80M FT8.  80 is one of my worst bands.

It would be better if people didn't work stations on more than one band in the same mode. That would reduce at least a little stress on the pile-ups. Just sayin'...

I know there are methods but the everyone repeating their calls to be the last distinct suffix heard and talk right over the top of the station calling cq dx is counter productive.   Bag of rude childish A holes!  I get the excitement but damn these morons go too far.

Finished up the 13 this morning with the RI station.  Mixed digital, CW and SSB. I also snagged the WM3PEN, but don't have the British and French stations yet.

I found the CW the easiest of all as the pileups were very small to non-existent on them. I think a lot of guys don't do CW that like to chase these kinds of things. They are missing out because CW is not that hard to just do a 5NN and a TU. You really don't have to be good at CW to work these kinds of things. Not near as profecient as you have to be to actually ragchew on CW.

I can’t reach TM13col or GB13col to save my life. I heard TM on 17M last night for awhile clear as day but my dipole is not tuned to that band so they couldn’t hear me. I’ve also barely heard GB on 20m but not enough to make out words or if they could hear me.

Same situation as last year. Not seeing either station on 40m SSB this year at all. Been watching DX summit religiously every day all day. Guess I’ll try at night until 7/7 since it’s back to work tomorrow.

Writing this from the perspective of SSB phone operations--someone else will have to weigh in on CW and digi op's...

It's not really anyone's fault. It's the nature of this particular game. It's a perfect storm of having a very accessible game combined with comparatively few servicing stations.

Just guessing at actual numbers, but consider the differences between the following three different scenarios:

1. Regular DX--some station appears on the air, gets spotted on a spotting site. Maybe a few tens of folks at a time can actually hear the DX station and happen to notice it by spinning the dial. And maybe a few hundred notice it on the spotting site but only a few tens of them can actually hear the DX station. As a result you get maybe 20 or 30 people calling at the same time. This load is easily serviced by a single station.

2. Rare DX--similar to regular DX, but people are primed and looking actively. So maybe you get 50 or 70 people calling at the same time. Still a reasonably workable situation for a single station using by-the-number and/or split op's.

3. 13 Colonies--literally hundreds, if not thousands, of stations can easily find, hear and (potentially) work a very few number of target stations. When conditions are good (and they were on the first day of the event) I would not be surprised if a 13 Colonies pile-up had literally 500 stations calling at the same time after every "QRZ?" transmission. Even going by-the-numbers cannot effectively service that load. I listened to many 13 Colonies stations do that and never ran out of any number. They'd just go with a zone for 10 minutes then switch to the next one.

Not only are the "13C" stations easy to find and hear, the nature of the event as essentially a radio scavenger hunt attracts many, many more hams than are ordinarily attracted by regular DX chasing or contesting. A scavenger hunt seems doable, with an obvious way to score, and a clearly defined finish line, whereas chasing DX or contesting is open-ended in nature. The simple and accessible nature of the event is much more attractive than other, more esoteric pursuits. I fall into this category myself.

All of these factors combine to attract a huge number of hams, perhaps exceeded only by the largest contests or field day. But in large contests and field day there is an equally large pool of servicing stations to take one's call. Not so for 13 Colonies.

Finally, add into this situation the fact that many, perhaps most, of the hams taking part couldn't even tell you what the DX Code of Conduct is, since they don't chase DX. It wouldn't matter if they could because when 500, or even 100, stations all call at exactly the same time not even the DX Code of Conduct can make that work.

So we are left with Unbridled Carnage, where the loudest, trickiest and luckiest wins. All the things they tell you not to do, like calling multiple times, using partial call signs, etc., come out to play. IMHO almost all is fair short of outright jamming or the pathetic person who simply repeats their call sign over and over again for 30 seconds at a whack. The dirtiest trick of all is when someone throws out their call sign when the target station says something like "Who was the 'Y' station?" even when their call doesn't have a Y in it. I hear people do that a lot. Oh, I have been tempted by that one many times, but have so far resisted (that works because during the next shouting evolution that call is in short term memory and the op may think he hears it more clearly than he really does).

I used to do this event with no spotting. I gave that up because an obvious technique is to hit a new spot while it's fresh before too many others see it. And to work the event during working hours, because I have the luxury to do so.

I've played in this event since its inception and obtained 100% scores on phone every year except two, and one of those (last year) was because I didn't play at all. Maybe next year I'll try doing it with FT8 and 1500W

Try it this way: http://www.dxsummit.fi/#/?dx_calls=GB13COL,TN13COL

That's what I'm doing. People are reporting them on FT8, but I'm not seeing them reply to all the people reaching out.

Could just be propagation. It took a lot of watching and waiting. You can check PSKReporter and see about where their signals are landing. Been a lot of spotting but it isn't making past the eastern seaboard or a little deeper. They were spotted this morning but going east not west. Just have to look at all available tools to see the best opportunity.

Also, as much as I don't like doing it. You can't wait on a CQ on FT8/FT4. I don't think they're calling CQ much. Watch the board and the minute you see them finishing up a contact hit them with their SNR only. Don't waste time with the normal flow. Also, you may have to bombard them some. Again, stuff we don't normally do and is frowned upon almost becomes necessary.

Still need F and I, as well as GB13COL and TM13COL.
I can't get MD to respond. Guess I still have a few days.

Snagged both of them this morning on 20 FT8. I did have to use some power, as both were pretty weak.

13 colonies + WM3PEN in the log.
Have heard both GB and TM pileups, but they're not working split. No way my 50 Watts CW & dipole is cutting through that mess without split.

I got K2J on SSB late last night.  I was using 80W at the time, and had to repeat my call 3X.

Still, nice to have made a contact from east of the Mississippi for a change.

I operated K2L from home on Saturday night / early Sunday morning on 20m, both CW and later on SSB. First I had a slow pileup from Australians, then turned the antenna towards Europe and a huge pileup began. So, I started going by numbers. After working zeros, I paused and called for mobile, QRP or portable stations. Everyone behaved except........guess who?  That's right - Italy Zulus... They just kept calling no matter what, even when I replied to another station! Very annoying but it's to be expected. LOL

When I called for QRP, mobiles and /P,  a guy called from the UK operating pedestrian portable. He was at S6 on the S-meter! Not bad!

I remember reading about some guy who had a backpack radio with a loaded whip antenna extending up above his shoulder, and dragging a counterpoise wire along the ground behind him as he walked.  It might have been posted here a few years back.

TM13COL is MIA on digital.

I’ve seen him spotted on 20m CW a few times but that’s it.

I worked them yesterday on 20 meter FT8

Station
Call Sign K0UA
DXCC UNITED STATES OF AMERICA (291)
CQ Zone 04
ITU Zone 07
Grid EM36JQ
State Missouri (MO)
County Taney
Worked Station
Worked TM13COL
Date/Time 2022-07-04 17:13:00
Mode FT8 (DATA)
Band 20M
Frequency 14.07426
Record ID 1544118043 Received: 2022-07-04 17:18:50