What Use Is An F-call?

What use is an F-call? There are many different ways that you can make contacts using HF. Over the past weeks I've talked about picking your band and frequency, about matching the rhythm of the other station, about setting up next to a big station, about picking and choosing, rather than sitting on one frequency calling CQ. Another technique you can use to make contacts is to listen for local stations, to hear whom they're talking to and at the end of their QSO with a distant station, which you must also be able to hear, otherwise it just defeats the purpose, asking for a QSO with the same remote station. It's likely that the local station will hear you much louder than the remote station and many locals will help you out with the contact. Don't expect them to help, they're having fun, just like you, but be gracious when they do help. In this Internet connected world of impersonal email, it's easy to slip into the same mindset, anonymous communication, but the Amateur Radio community is small. You're like