Dual operator CW POTA script

[mcdanlj]

Shortly before N4NTO Tripp passed, Mark N4MQU did a video of Tripp teaching him to do a dual-operator CW POTA activations. I watched that video, and then combined it with conversations on Mastodon including with Dan KB6NU and actually trying a dual-operator QRP activation with Brantley K4CBW last weekend. We learned some lessons as we experimented from what worked and what didn't, and I thought I'd share the resulting script here.

Screenshot From 2025-11-09 17-11-10.png (149.63 KiB) Viewed 355017 times

Here are https://people.danlj.org/mkj/Dual-OP-CW ... -Sheet.pdf that you can print duplex and cut out as a cheat sheet, and https://people.danlj.org/mkj/Dual-OP-CW ... -Sheet.odt that you can edit in LibreOffice if you want to change anything.

We didn't send "AS" to pass a physical key. We hooked two keys into the same radio using a normal 1/8" stereo audio splitter cable. We still had to agree on the keyer settings in the radio, of course; otherwise we would have needed separate keyers and set the radio to accept straight key input. For our activation, as it happens, I am a single-paddle user, so A or B doesn't make a lot of difference to me. That made it easy to agree on a setting: we just used his preference. We could "pass the key" by just nodding at each other.

Sending CALL1 ES CALL2 in the CQ clues in the hunter that something is different, at least if they are paying attention. Sending CALL1 ES CALL2 with the 72 gives them a chance to double-check their logs if something seemed off, and clues in hunters who didn't hear the CQ because they arrived on frequency in the middle of the QSO. We did alternate who sent the CQ from time to time to give fingers a rest, but kept the responses in the same order as our calls listed in the CQ, which we kept consistent. We both sent "CQ POTA DE KZ4LY ES K4CBW" and I was always the first to respond, even if he sent the CQ.

We had at least one hunter who may have thought that Brantley (the CALL2 for us) was another hunter calling me at the wrong time. Sending THEIRCALL DE CALL1 / THEIRCALL DE CALL2 at the beginning of each exchange is meant to address that confusion, because they should recognize their call and follow along.

You can make it easier for hunters by using Ham2K Polo's https://polo.ham2k.com/docs/polo-features/multiops/ explicit multi-operator support so that at least other Polo users see a combined spot.

This is not the way to make the most contacts fastest. It's a way to activate socially without needing bandpass filters, alternating operating sessions, or moving antennas out of near field and running somewhat obtrusive coax a long way through a park to avoid QRM. (Feels like what golfers have told me that going golfing with a friend is like...)

I think this operating mode should become more common, and the more of us do it, the easier it will be for POTA hunters to recognize the script. So this post is part of my "be the change you wish to see in the world."

[KL7MJ]

What you're proposing isn't wrong or illegal or anything like that, but I would find it very confusing, and I'm not a new operator - which I think is kind of the target audience for POTA. Why not just take turns operating? Have one operator get 10 contacts and then turn it over? Or one of you act as control operator and both log with the same callsign?

[mcdanlj]

Multi-operator POTA is done a lot on SSB, and there's no particular reason not to do it on CW. There is a general script for it on SSB.

Everything new is unfamiliar until it's not new any more. So the fact that trying to do it at all would be relatively unusual but not unheard of isn't ipso facto a reason not to do it.

My goal is to reduce the confusion when it is done.

I'm not the only one interested. As I led with, Tripp N4NTO did this, and Dan KB6NU posted a less detailed procedural suggestion for it as well https://www.kb6nu.com/a-pota-procedural-proposal/ where I jumped into the conversation.

I've seen the question come up repeatedly if not persistently.

When I raised this particular script on the POTA discord's pota-cw channel, it got some interest and wasn't dismissed.

So while I am interested in suggestions for additional tweaks that might improve the script, I feel like "why not just don't do it?" is maybe missing some nuance.

[KL7MJ]

Maybe I'm missing the point - why is it important that both operators get credit for operating the same station? As far as benefiting the hunter with two contacts at once, I would ask if we're so desperate for contacts that we need to get two credits for working literally the same station, essentially as part of the same contact?

I look at it like being part of a club station on field day; I just use the club's callsign. If I want to make contacts using my call I set up somewhere else.

If there are two keys connected to a transmitter, who exactly is the control operator?

[mcdanlj]

It's a social activity, fun for exactly the same reasons as passing the mic when using SSB. This has nothing to do with desperation; that's a straw man. No one said it was about desperation; not sure why you bring that up as a motivation.

Like the whole rest of POTA, this is for fun.

Maybe you haven't experienced how much fun folks have passing the mic. There's no particular reason that CW operators shouldn't have the same fun available to them.

There's no more question about control operator with two keys available than with passing the mic. We still hand off who is controlling. There's no rule anywhere that you can't connect two keys to a radio, nor a rule that you can't let anyone else touch the key without transmitting. This is not complicated. You can pass the physical key if you want to; my point was that it's not necessary if you have operators passing control between then who prefer different keys as long as they can work out compatible keying systems.

I'm not the first to try this. I'm following footsteps. I just found it fun enough to try to make it easier for others too.

If you don't find it fun, don't do it. No need to rain on the parade of those who want to enjoy it. I'm not the only one.

Welcome feedback would be suggestions for further changes to make it better, even if I disagree about what would make it better. Still interested in that kind of feedback, but much less interested in argumentation of this sort.

[Stuart M0TTQ]

There have been a couple of activators doing two-op CW lately and they rely partly on people looking at the spot page and deducing the two calls on the same frequency at the same park mean it's a two-op and partly on going straight from one op giving the hunter a report to the second op also giving his callsign and a report and then closing the contact. It seems to work and if anything it's a slicker operation than SSB multi-operator ones.

If the family of 6 I once worked P2P on phone ever get on CW things will get interesting!

[mcdanlj]

Yeah, if both operators spot the same frequency and park(s), at least Polo should show you as CALL1,CALL2 and load both calls to work, which should be a great hint to operators logging with polo. I didn't understand how that worked when Brantley K4CBW and I were activating; I learned that just a little bit too late.