This was my first big field day as I just received my license late last year.
A couple of thing I observed. The 150 limit was not always self imposed. There were more than a few stations still blowing right along at high power.
There was so many people participating that
1. You did not need a lot of watts to get contacts, and
2. The high power folks were bleeding over and making it hard on other contestants.
3. When the waterfall is white, high power just tends to add to the problems.
My favorite was a fellow that sounded to be very old and hard of hearing. His radio was on 40 meters and instead of .00 or .50, his frequency he was .25 or somewhere close.
He told everyone they were off frequency again and again. Finally some gentleman in an east Texas accent fired up his cloud warmer and told the fellow, "Hoss, you are the one off frequency."
I heard more that one person mention they felt that 150 watts was QRP to them.
But really, there were so many folks in so many pileups I can't imagine someone not getting contacts. Maybe they felt it was not fast or easy enough to get contacts.
And if the other hams did not tune to his frequency then yes they were off frequency frequency, they were off of his rightfully chosen frequency even if he was actually on 7.222436MHz and you wanted him to be on 7.2225MHz, that is his chosen frequency.
Also how can one be off frequency if they are operating within the ham bands, this comment makes no sense because any selected frequency within your license class and mode of operation is valid as long as you consider out of band spurious and such?
I can go to what some people may define as the 10 meter FM simplex calling frequency of 29.600 MHz and call CQ if I desire on 29.60125 MHz FM and still be on a good frequency.
I am on my chosen desired operating frequency, and nobody should tell me that I am on the wrong frequency either.
You don't need to be on an even 1 kHz integer or a 500Hz increment such as 7.222 MHz or 7.2225 MHz either and being on a frequency such as 7.222257 or 7.222194 MHz etc, are also perfectly good and legal frequencies to operate on so I do not understand this statement about chastising the other ham as to his frequency choice?
If someone has an issue with a ham being on a non 1 kHz integer or not on a half kHz increment that the other ops radio is set to tune to then as the two knowledgable hams who posted ahead of me suggested use your radios thing called a VFO/fine tuning adjustment and get on the other guys frequency, modern radios can typically tune in 10 Hz or better steps.
You need to consider that the older ham was also using an older radio such as a 60 year old Collins model that sounds just as good, and probably has a better receiver by the way, than any of the new radios.
Although it doesn't have a 10 or 5 hz accurate frequency display and typically an old analog dial many hams still use these older analog dial radios are still on the ham bands in operation by seasoned hams.