so ive been chasing rare DX for about 4 years now and pileups have always been my weak point. i know the theory - listen first, work split, dont transmit on the DX frequency, all that stuff - but knowing it and actually doing it when theres 400 guys screaming on 14.195 are two very different things.

anyway this past weekend there was activity from a pretty rare entity and i decided to really pay attention to what i was doing instead of just randomly calling. first thing i noticed is the DX operator had a very clear pattern - he was working up about 3-4 kHz and sliding up maybe 500hz after every 2-3 QSOs. once i figured that out i started placing my signal just slightly ahead of where i thought hed move next and it actually worked, got through on about the 8th or 9th call which for me on 100w and a dipole is basically a miracle.

also noticed that a lot of guys were sending their full callsign every single time and i switched to just sending the last two letters after the first couple attempts. seemed to help cut through the noise. running an IC-7300 so no fancy filtering or anything, just stock setup.

curious if others have tips - especially for 17m which seems way more chaotic than 20m pileups for some reason

yeah the pattern recognition thing is huge and most people completley ignore it. ive worked enough DXpeditions now that i can usually figure out the split window within the first 5 minutes of listening. the ones that slide their listening frequency predictably are actually easier to crack than the guys who jump around randomly trying to be fair - paradoxically the random ones are harder because you cant anticipate anything.

on the partial call thing - i go back and forth on this. some DX ops actually get annoyed by it because if youre not unique within the pileup youre just adding confusion. worked a VP8 op a while back who specifically said on his frequency to send full calls only. but in a huge pileup on a strong signal yeah just the suffix is often the right move. gotta read the operator.

17m chaos is real btw. the band is narrower and theres no fixed gentlemens agreement on split spacing the way theres kind of an informal one on 20m. also skip on 17 can be really peaky so you get these bursts of signals that werent there 10 minutes ago and suddenly 50 new guys are in the pile. 20m is more stable propagation wise which probably helps

good timing on this thread because ive been struggling with pileups too. i run an FT-991A and have been wondering if getting a better antenna would help more than anything else - right now im on a G5RV which i know isnt ideal. like at what point does power and antenna actually matter vs just technique because i feel like im doing everything right and still cant get through