I noticed the same thing a few times. Unless one changes frequency while
running, the spots shouldn't be all that far off. I notice that
sometimes they are when I click on them, but that may be because of a
QSY. That's pretty common when running, when an adjacent station moves
in. I suspect some callers are using wider bandwidths, but don't have a
sense of matching the beat notes. Musicians call that "tone deafness",
and some operators no doubt have it.
A more frequent problem is when everyone is exactly zero beat with each
other. Sometimes the spots are TOO accurate!
BTW, Bob's experience illustrates the dramatic difference in skirt
selectivity between the IC-7610 and the K4. The K4 has such poor skirts
that you can hear stations several hundred Hz from the center, even with
a 300-400 Hz bandwidth. At 400 Hz BW, the IC-7610 is 60 dB down 270 Hz
from the center, while the K4 is only 18 dB down. I know, some prefer
the softer skirts, but I don't. Anyway, the IC-7610 has a softer option.
Alas, for other reasons I prefer the K4, but I sure wish it had
filtering like the IC-7610.
73,
Scott K9MA
On 12/9/2025 12:25 PM, w2xl@twc.com wrote:
I participated in the ARRL 160 this past weekend. Conditions were
pretty bad and I didn't hit it real hard, mostly I ran. 25% or more of
my contacts were far (really far!) from zero beat. This seems to be
getting worse and some of the offenders are well known calls. Many
times the calls were far off my Freq. , some more than 500 - 1000 Hz.
and out of my passband. Some of these callers were strong enuf that I
would have got them on the first call if they were a little closer
close to zero beat. The only way I found some of them was I noticed
pips on my IC-7610 band scope that were out of my passband, but in
sync with my calling CQ or QRZ and I used the RIT to tune way off
Freq. to pull them in. I normally run 200 - 300 Hz bandwidth but I had
to open it to 450 Hz to hear a lot of these calls.
I think there are several reasons for this: 1. Stations click on
packet spots that are not exactly the frequency that I am on , they
hear me OK but don't bother to tune me in better. 2. Listening to a
beat note that is not what their RX is set for. (which sets the exact
TX freq.) 3. Wide CW Filter or CW filter setting (which can cause 1 &
2) 4. Using the logging software to set a TX offset to break pile ups
that is too far from normal for S & P use. (I think 100 - 200Hz should
be more that enuf for S & P)
So I would ask that everyone check out the factors I have mentioned
and try to get close to zero beat when doing S & P 73 MX & HNY Bob
W2XL
PS: This is my first post to CQ Contest after abt 57 years of
Contesting ! MX & HNY !
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Scott K9MA
k9ma@sdellington.us
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