would be for someone who is more familiar with the procedure, to

post a

brief explanation of the basics for us greenhorns who are not as

experienced

in DXing. Such as, how far UP will the DX station be listening.

I'm not an expert by any means, but here's my shot at it. I use
Digipan, so that will be my reference. And if I get anything wrong or
incomplete, I hope that someone more knowledgeable will feel free to
correct me.

As Duncan said, use the two-channel mode of the PSK software, and set
one channel on the DX station, but make the active (transmitting)
channel the other one. Select a clear frequency for your transmitting
freq--don't pile on top of everyone else. The DX station will be
looking for someone he can receive, and QRM won't help.

Get to know his rhythm, how long he listens between transmissions.
Time your calls to be that long. As Duncan points out, just send your
call. He will assume you are calling him, and doesn't need to hear his
own call repeated in a 3x3.

I guess I don't usually send "KN" instead of just "K", but maybe
that's because I don't consider myself (a W3) to be a rare catch.
Duncan and Zoli's experiences are different--maybe it depends on where
and who you are.

Macros can speed the transmission, but if you can type fast enough,
you can do it manually. Don't expect a ragchew, and don't even dream
of sending your brag file. All he wants is your callsign and report.
Most reports are "courtesy" 599s, so don't worry about being accurate.
But make sure that he gets your call correctly, and feel free to ask
for a correction if he gets it wrong. (If I had done that the first
time, I'd have a PY0FT QSL by now, instead of a "not in log"
response.)

As for how far up, it really depends. In CW and SSB operation, there
is often an indication in the "up" direction, like "up 3." And on SSB,
the signals are wider, so the "up spread" has to be wider. But on PSK,
since the bandwidths are so small, I personally think it's more likely
that he is doing exactly what you are doing, scanning across a
waterfall that's about 2-2.5 kHz wide. So I would start there--leave
my transceiver on single VFO and put his signal at the bottom, and
transmit above him in that range. You may be able to figure out where
he's looking if you can see both ends of a QSO--find the transmission
he's responding to.

BTW, be careful if he says "listening up" and you are in LSB mode. The
spectrum is inverted, and his "up" is your "down."

Duncan and I have had a number of split QSOs using this technique. I
was in California, and he was calling "CQ Africa" without obvious
responses. I didn't want to step on anyone who was calling him, but
wanted to chat if he had time and no one else replied. So I called him
about 100 Hz away. He was still able to watch for simplex responses
while I transmitted off-frequency.

If the spread gets wider than your waterfall (or your transmit
filter), you will have to figure out how to run split VFOs on you
transceiver.

FWIW, I managed to do just that last night. I had to go to the manual
to set up the VFOs, since I had never done it on the new Yaesu. And I
also had to figure out how MMTTY worked, since it wasn't a PSK
station. But I managed to get VFOa on 21079.3 (the DX transmit freq)
and I set VFOb on 21080.3 to transmit on. Since this was RTTY, the
spread was larger, and I couldn't find a dual-channel option on MMTTY.
I couldn't figure out MMTTY's macros, so I just typed everything by
hand each time. But after about five or six calls from my little
station (5 watts from a Yaesu FT-817 into an attic 40m dipole, tuned
for 15) I was rewarded with "W3HF W3HF de TI9M ur 599 599 bk". Frankly
I'm quite pleased with my first-ever RTTY contact.

I hope this helps someone. And as I said, I'm not an expert here, so
please feel free to challenge my statements.

73,
Steve
W3HF



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