Hi Steve !
Thanks for the 15 meter qso in the ARRL contest ! I guess I'm not
on your list !
Your post confirmed for me that there is some price to be paid by DX
contesters for ignoring incoming QSLs, although if the bottom line is one's
contest score, I suppose a valid argument can be made that if we balanced
the time spent answering QSLs against time spent improving the station, the
latter might outweigh the loss of QSOs from DX stations who don't call
because of past unanswered QSLs. I do enjoy it when 5-10 times a weekend
during a contest someone calls me "Stuart", which I know came from a
received QSL card, as I generally go by "Stu" in person or on the air.
I personally try to answer every bureau card that comes in, and feel
that if a DX station uses the bureau and expects a reply, it's not
unreasonable, at least from USA stations (however, we are now up to $8 a
pound outgoing ??). I may be as much of a DXer as I am a contester. I
cherish each incoming bureau shipment, and show my family the interesting
cards (not the X-rated ones !). Each incoming bureau shipment is like a
visual world trip for me, when the actual contest is an audio one.
That being said, I had a lot of time on my hands last spring, being
laid up with a badly broken leg. I did something that most people would
not normally do unless laid up in such a manner, and that is to check on my
progress on some awards. I decided to see where I stood with 6BWAS, and
found that of course I was way behind, due to having never initiated any
domestic QSLing since I was novice around 1970. My logging program (DXbase
!) showed that I had 196 confirmed out of 300 needed for 6BWAS - yikes. I
printed up labels using domestic stations found always in contest logs, and
used a blend of "big gun" stations as well as guys of whom I can honestly
say I don't recognize their calls. From reading past posts on this subject,
I can tell you that I expected about a 50% return at best, as unfortunately
I think USA contesters have developed a reputation of being bad QSLers.
So here's the details of my study - 93 envelopes sent out, some with
multiple bands for rare states, each with an address checked on the
Buckmaster web site, so probably current. Each with an SASE, proper
postage. I really was surprised at the results - I had 55 back within a
month, or 59 %. I had 67 back within 2 months, and to date (now nine
months) I 've gotten 78 of the 93 back, for an 84 % response, which I'm
really pleased with. There ARE some well-known contesters among the
delinquent 15, but never mind !
And, in this period of time, I went from 196 out of 300, to 281 out of
300 confirmed. I still have four of those which I somehow managed to avoid
ever working - Louisiana on 160, North Dakota on 40, and South Dakota and
Wyoming on 40.
73 from New Hampshire
Stu KC1F kc1f@prodigy.net
----- Original Message -----
From: Steve, IK4WMH <topdxer@tin.it>
To: <CQ-Contest@contesting.com>
Sent: Friday, February 23, 2001 9:27 AM
Subject: [CQ-Contest] ARRLDX CW - A new operating practice
>
>
> Hi everyone,
>
> a few days before ARRL CW Contest I checked my logbook program
> searching for unreplied qsl cards during the years.
>
> I focused on those qsl cards sent via the bureau for contest qso's in
> the years up to 1997, I believe a 4 years period is long enough to get
> a qsl card via the bureau.
>
> The result was a list of about 60 u.s. callsigns and a couple of
> canadians who never replied to my qsl cards.
>
> Then I created a new multiplier called QSL, and filled the ARRL 2001
> CW contest log file with these callsigns on all bands, as if I already
> worked all these guys and they all sent me this strange multiplier.
>
> During the contest I was mainly doing S&P, and when I found a station
> which was already in the log and marked with the QSL multiplier I
> turned the knob.
>
> A few of these are well known big multi-multi stations, so giving the
> fact that some of them probably have 600+ mults worked, that I worked
> on 3 bands, and that each qso is 3 points worth, those stations lost
> 5,000 up to 6,000 points.
>
> I am not going to write callsigns, they know who they are.
>
> Contesting is funny, receiving qsl cards after contest qso's is also
> funny.
>
> During the last weekend, while carefully avoiding to work those guys,
> I had a lot of fun.
>
>
> --------------------------------------------------
> Whoever called it necking was a poor judge of anatomy.
> --------------------------------------------------
>
> Ciao.
> Steve, IK4WMH
> mailto:topdxer@tin.it
>
>
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>
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