Worked fairly easily on 15 CW with 100w, 2015Z.  Surprisingly small pileup, especially for a Sunday. Much louder today than yesterday, although that's relative.  Still not moving the S-meter much.  Glad you guys on the east coast are getting a shot, as he has not been strong here.  Normally VK/ZL is falling off a log from Colorado.  Almost inaudible on 20m right now, although that may just be the fact they are beaming EU.

Have a couple of night shifts left here before I can chase him on top band.  Good news that they were allowed to stay on the island overnight.  Hope some 160m activity is in the offing.

(ed @ 2100Z)  Also worked on 10m CW w/100w.

Well I was thinking that my odds for a contact were < 1%, as I am only looking for a 160m QSO.  Due to the political constraints the team is under, I believed that a low band contact was going to be essentially impossible.  However after checking against their imposed quiet hours and the Campbell Island sunset, it looks as though there may be some chance of of a 160m contact between their sunset at 0907Z and imposed QRT at 1000Z.  Gonna have to burn some midnight oil...

As AD9DX indicated, if the DX says "5 up," he is listening for your call at least 5 kHz up.  There are two reasons for this.  1: It spreads the callers out so the DX stations stands a chance of picking out calls more easily.  2: It gets callers off his transmit frequency so callers can actually hear him and respond appropriately.  Simplex pileups (all stations on the same frequency) tend to be a real nightmare with nonstop calling because no one can hear the DX respond.

When a DX station says up 5, that usually means that is the minimum difference from his transmit frequency that he listening.  He may be taking calls up 10 or even more.  That's your puzzle to figure out.  Dual receive transceivers make this much easier, but nearly all modern transceivers provide some facility for monitoring your own transmit frequency so you can determine where exactly you want to put your signal.

As I type, I am listening to EL2LF on 30m.  He's transmitting on 10.105 and listening for replies on roughly 10.107, which of course is "up 2," but he doesn't say this.  Only occasionally he says "up" after his call.  His transmit frequency never changes, but he moves his receiver around picking out calls.   When you hear a rare station, especially a DXpedition, assume they are working split unless you can actually hear the DX station responding to callers on his own frequency.  CW pileups such as this one tend to be much more closely spaced than SSB pileups.

The trick is to find the last station(s) the DX worked and plant your signal near there.  Often the DX listens in a predictable pattern, moving up or down the band after each QSO, and it's your job to figure that out.  Obviously the best thing to do is plant your transmit signal where the DX is going to be listening next.  Some DX stations make this easy to do, and some are quite difficult.  It's all part of gaining DXing skill.

7P8D is active in the CQWW very easy to work.  Watch the cluster spots.

Good job on the greyline LP QSOs.  Those are fun.  I saw a bunch of posts for the V8 from the East Coast saying "loud" this afternoon.  Hoping some of you guys struggling with so-called "short" path were around to take advantage.

I dunno if  40m has been open longpath to the SW from here in the AM because I've been gone at night and it's light when I get home.  40m is different than the lower bands and I'm convinced it benefits from higher flux more than 80 and 160.

I got him on 20m CW tonite @ 2228Z.  Only about an S4~5, but again worked easily w/100W.  Real time log said the op was YO5OED.  Very competent.

Fun listening to everybody warming up for CQWW this weekend.  Good chance to get some band fills.  Got all those new PJs worked everywhere?

Paul and group,

Worked tonite @ 23:41Z on 28.025, listening up 1.  Not too strong, but I got him w/100w.  He was working mostly USA.

LC

I'm listening to him on 30m right now and he's easily doing 35.

I notice that in the pileups I've been involved that often the PT0S op sends the call and report more than once, sometimes 3 or 4 times, before someone wakes up and realizes they just got lucky.  When it comes to speed, it could be less is more in this case.

Complicating the problem...I think...is guys getting in the pileup that don't actually know CW and rely on computer copy.  We know how well that works.  Is this true?  Am I rationalizing?  Computers are just too ponderous for CW DXing...one reason RTTY is so slow and awkward in a pileup.

As far as this being "just another CW Dxpedition," yeah well, that's what DXers do.  It should be obvious that if you don't know CW, you're gonna miss some good DX.  You can bet we'll see plenty of SSB only or SSB/digi operations in the future as the no-code people begin mounting their own expeditions.  Can you imagine how well the 160m operation would have gone if it was all SSB?

Apparently most don't realize that by the time spotted QSXs make thru the cluster system they are ancient history and the the DX has long since moved on.  Good technique to listen and call elsewhere when a spot frequency shows up on the internet.

Worked them on 17m CW this afternoon.  It became much easier when Tomi, HA7RY took over the controls.  He had a definite pattern that was easily spotted, moving up a little after each QSO.  I just dropped my call in a few hundred Hertz above his last QSO and it only took about five calls once I spotted his QSX.

Having a higher A and K index worked to NA's advantage today as the band was poorer to EU.

Hooray, my 160, 80 and 12m QSOs all showed up in the log!

Exactly the same thing happened to me on 160m.  I clearly got the "...RS," but in my case it was thanks to the band cops, "up,up,uppers," tuner uppers and lids in general that caused me to miss my prefix.  "RS" isn't exactly a rare suffix with DXers, with AA0RS, N2RS, K9RS (who I'm often mistaken for) all active.

I've got two solid QSOs, on 80 and 17, and two iffy ones on 160 and 12, all CW.  The 12m SSB pileup this morning was a real moron's melee, with a bunch of pig farmers holding court on PT0S's transmit frequency.  Every time I get involved in an SSB pileup, I feel like I need a shower afterward...yecch.

...and that's good for you.  Try 80 or 160.  I would like to work them on the bands where I don't already have SP&P, not just any old where that I can happen to get thru.

A few observations so far:

Apparently someone, somewhere, doesn't like these guys.  Intentional QRM seems to be at an all time high.

Pileups are extraordinarily large.  I realize this is an ATNO for some, but SP&P just isn't that rare.  It surely is no 7O or P5.

The pileups seem much more difficult than necessary.  Some of you guys are reporting getting through in short order and that's great, but I'd have to say that seems to be the exception.  There is often no discernable listening pattern for the PT0S op and his QSX is difficult to ascertain.  Even if you spot his previous QSO, it doesn't seem to do much good.  He just pops up on another unpredictable frequency.  Splits are often out of control...up 40 kHz?

It seems they haven't gotten their noise problem under control yet.  They had two stations going last night, one on 80m and one on 160m.  At times the 80m rate was painfully slow.  After my local midnight (0700 UTC) the 160m op worked no one, even though many were calling on specific frequencies specified by PT0S.  He eventually gave up in frustration and QSYed to 40m complaining of QRN.  Once on 40, he commenced working EU, which by then was in almost in complete daylight, ignoring an opening to JA and Asia which was short lived...something their website said they would be mindful of.  A lost opportunity.  I'll bet there were some disappointed JAs.

If you check a grayline map, EU really has the holeshot on NA for this one.  The distance to EU is not much greater than NA, and the grayline really favors EU this time of year from SP&P.  I finally got a QSO on 80 last night, but not until after he had taken a break and the pileup had diminished significantly.  Previous to his break he had been working EU almost exclusively.  I really can't remember spending so much time in one pileup.

I'm with W2IRT and AF3Y.  I thought this would be a chip shot.  Instead it's proven to be an extraordinarily tough nut.

That would explain the difficulty in picking out callsigns.  He actually got up to S4~5 here on my HyTower cum inverted L, but later in the evening the static crashes were still in excess of S9 which made it difficult to tell who he was responding to.  Hopefully this storm will have tracked further to the east by tonight so the band will be quieter.  Beautiful, clear starry night last night, but still lots of residual noise.  Hopefully they will have have the 160m RX antenna in place and that will speed things up a bit.  Agree that the pileup was large on 160M.  I missed the 80M activity, where I also need SP&P.

Spots of PT0S on 160m showing up.

Wouldn't you know it?  Last night I had a nice quiet band.  Today a snowstorm blew thru and now band noise is S9 +20.  Rats.

1825.5, up 4 or 5 if you can hear him.

The current power limits for VKs are very conservative: 10w for the Foundation license, 100w PEP (30w CW) for the Standard license and 400w PEP (120w CW) for the Advanced.  There is trial period for Advanced stations to apply for a 1 KW license as part of an inquiry whether that class should be permitted higher power in the future.  The ACMA (Australia's version of the FCC) was initially sceptical of granting higher power licenses, but is however allowing a trial period.  I believe a decision is scheduled for 2013 regarding implementing permanent rules.  I doubt there are many (any?) 2 KW 30m CW or digital stations on the air.  They may allow 2 KW PEP SSB under the special license.  Doesn't look like they prohibit SSB on 30m, "any mode up to 8 kHz bandwidth."  But all in all, it sounds like the ACMA is a very conservative organization.

Most countries make no special power exceptions for 30m and are not limited by the 200w restriction in force in the USA.

There's a rare exception to sending cards when one is received.  Contest stations may QSL preemptively to everyone they have had a contact with during a contest.  It's just easier to QSL everyone than deal later with individual requests.  Often they include a note, "No QSL required."  If that's the case, it should be clear on their card.  Is it marked "QSL PSE?"  Then send one.  Is it marked "QSL TNX?"  Then none is required.

If I missed it in the thread, sorry, but always use GMT (UTC) on your cards.