My opinions. Worth what you paid for them.
So you want to call CQ, you tune around the band a bit and find what appears to be a quiet spot. You ask a couple of times if the frequency is in use and get no response, you are good to go right? Maybe not. From a pure etiquette stand point you are, but there may be a very week DX station on a nearby frequency and you just made it impossible for many people to work that station.
The solution, look on the spotting network and make sure you are 3+ kHz away from the DX stations frequency.
I have been a licensed amateur radio operator since 1991. I was in the early crop of “No Code” Tech license holders. I know there was much hate and discontent from many old timers when this change went in place but it got me interested as I have tried a number of methods for learning morse code, but seem to have some sort of mental block.
In February of 2015 I finally upgraded to General and in March 2015 to Extra. By this time virtually every vanity callsign in the 1×2 and 2×1 had been taken.
My original call was NØPBK. For some reason people always wanted to transpose the PB to BP. If you hadn’t guessed by now my new call is KK3MM.
I am enjoying the heck out of the hobby seeing what I can do with 100 watts and home brew antennas.
73 Dan KK3MM