so been trying to work Chatham Island for a few weeks now whenever the band opens and last night i finally got through on 17m. took way longer than it should have but i think i finally figured out what i was doing wrong the whole time.

for the longest time i was just calling on top of everyone else right after the DX station finished, which is what i always assumed you were supposed to do. but i started watching more carefully and realized the DX op was listening way up — like 8 to 10 up — and i was just blasting away on his tx frequency like an idiot. once i found where he was actually pulling calls from everything changed pretty quick.

also started using split more aggresively, like actually parking my tx freq a little off where the big guns seem to be clustering because thats where it gets so dense nobody gets through. moved up maybe 3 or 4 khz from where most people were transmitting and got picked up on my third call after that. running about 500w into a hex beam at 35 feet so not a super station by any means.

anyway curious if others have tips for this kind of thing, specifically like how do you decide WHERE to put your tx freq in a split situation. is there some kind of strategy beyond just guessing or listening to where the DX is working people?

yeah the frequency selection in a pileup is kind of an art. what i usually do is listen for maybe 5-10 minutes before even keying up. you can actually hear the DX op's rhythm — some guys work up the pile systematically and you can anticipate roughly where they'll listen next. others are more random but even then you can usually tell if theyre favoring one end of the spread.

the other thing that helped me a lot was shortening my call. like in a pileup you really only want to send your call once, maybe twice if conditions are rough, and then listen. a lot of guys send their call 4 or 5 times and all that does is make it harder for the DX to pull anything out. the stations that break pileups fast are usually sending one crisp call and shutting up.

also if the DX op asks for a region or a number dont call if it isnt you, sounds obvious but you wouldnt believe how many people just pile in anyway and make it worse for everyone. congrats on the ZL7 tho, thats a decent one.

timing is everything honestly. i spent years just randomly calling and wondering why i couldnt break anything with 100w. what changed for me was really learning to listen to the DX station's cadence — like how fast they're moving through the pile, whether they're completing contacts quickly or struggling. if they're struggling and you hear them say "again?" a lot, conditions are rough and pounding away doesn't help. better to wait for a moment when signals are peaking.

one thing i havent seen mentioned much is how your signal sounds on the other end. got on the air with a friend in a different region once and had him just listen while i called into a pile. turns out my audio was way too wide and i was splattering all over the place which makes it harder to pull your call out. cleaned that up and things improved noticeably. worth checking if you havent already.