Instead of a report this morning, I will offer some suggestions to those of you who rarely split their rig's frequency, or have any reason to do it other then working DX.
If you are a beginning DXer you might ask why split? This is done so the DX station will remain in the clear and not be covered up by those wanting to work the rare entity, or expedition. Let's also look at it from the DX station's perspective, they call CQ and at least ten stations call. As the word spreads the pile up gets larger and larger until no one can tell for certain who was worked in the large pileup.
By using split, the problem is solved, the DX station will state where they are listening, say 5 to 10 up. or 2 up on CW etc.
The simplest method is to use those two controls on your radio one is called XIT and the other RIT. Some are called TX offset, or RX offset.
Say you hear a dx station and they state listening up 5. What do you do? Easiest method, depress the XIT on your radio, or again it may be called TX offset. With this method you are limited to an offset of 9.99 khz. However in the range of the listening window of the DX station.
Once you depress the XIT, there should appear an icon of some sort, turn the XIT and it should start to read out how much you have offset your transmitter. Note these knobs are small so it takes a little tuning, turn it to 5 kz and stop. Next step is see if indeed you are in offset mode, key your rig no need to speak, just key it and observe your readout of frequency. Does it indicate you are five khz up from your receive frequency. If so, you did it right.
Method 2, use the RIT, or RX offset and not the XIT, or TX offset. set your main VFO five Khz up from the dx frequency, depress RIT, or RX offset, tune it to the dx frequency. You will hear the receiver tuning and then in to the DX station's frequency. You should see an Icon of some sort indicating the number of Khz you are tuning your receiver.
In both methods, be sure and turn off the selections after you work the dx, a simple press of the XIT, RIT will return your rig to normal mode.
Method 3: If you have a sub receiver in your rig, activate it, tune to the dx frequency place your VFO five khz up, or ten or what ever the dx is saying they will listen.
What if you do not have a sub receiver, or the split is wider then ten Khz? Another method is available. BTW 40 meters normally requires a wider split, DX stations operate around 7.095 and state where they are listening. Of course for N,A. the band starts at 7.125 for ssb and the dx may listen around 7.150 give or take.
What do you do?
Just about every rig on the market has two VFO's so your first step is make sure both of them are on the band you want.
Look for the A=B button depress it, this will place both A and B on the same frequency. Next step,tune the main tuning to the transmit frequency and then tune the second VFO to the receive frequency. Depress the split button. Is your rig transmit channel up more then ten khz, if not and the VFO is reversed say transmitting on the DX frequency and receive on the selected transmit channel. Look for a button marked A/B depress it and try again to see if where you want to transmit and receive is where you want it. If it not say reversed, hit the A/B button again.
Hope this helps in the maze of directions your rig may have in the manual. If you have questions, be sure and ask, Regular reporting tomorrow.
