“My God, It's Full of Code!”
Well, I was tunning around 7240 khz tonight to try my hand at copying some morse code from the ether. Well, I experienced what a pile sounds like - for real - for the first time.
Basically, a “pile-up” happens during a contest or an expedition.
Someone is off in some obscure country or on some expedition to, say, Antarctica, or some other place that people all around the world want to contact - really, really, really badly. For some, they want to just work a wierd station. Others want to get that last country or continent for some award. Whatever the reason… a few dozen people try to answer the same call to the same station at the same time.
And, oh, what a sound it is...
[mp3]
...did you get that? I’ll give $10 to anyone who can tell me how many people are sending in that pile up and what their call signs are! I’ll give another $10 to anyone who can convince me that they really figured it out… no guessing!