"If I Can Hear 'Em, I Can Work 'Em!" Really?

It's something of a cliche for those who are attesting to their antennas' miraculous capabilities to spout out "If I can hear them, I can work them."

Now, I'm sure these prople are well-intentioned, but they certainly can't be very regular or careful operators, because there are sometimes occasions - more often than one would imagine - where stations are received strongly, but can't be worked, or worked only with difficulty.

There are numerous factors for this 'one-way propagation', and it's pretty clear from reading the literature that many of these factors are either poorly understood, or note understood at all.

I've noticed on 12m that signals during the summer and now the lowering part of the solar cycle, are propagated from South America by a form of sporadic E.  Sometimes, the signals coming in are quite strong, but it isn't always the case that signals from here (or anywhere else in the EU) are being heard at all in South America.

There isn't anything wrong with my set-up: a 3-element LFA Yagi that has an overall gain, with the ground, of some 14.5dBi.  It's just a feature of the way propagation works.

So, when next you hear someone saying that if he can hear them, he can work them, he/she clearly needs a bit more operating experience to realise it's a slightly silly thing to say.