On Mon, 10 Mar 2003, Mark Beckwith wrote:
> My thoughts on picking a call:
>
>
> Next choice would be to pick letters with phonetics which are the most
> difficult to mistake for anything else than what they are. Example:
>
> "Kilo Two Zulu Yankee."
>
> This choice of phonetics just can't be mistaken for any others.
>
Interesting. I generally use "Whiskey Nine Sierra Zulu" for my call in
those rare moments when I operate in an SSB contest. In heavy QRM or weak
signal conditions, it's somehow usually mistaken for "Whiskey Nine Sierra
Juliet".
>
> More exactly, avoid final letters with trailing dits. The reason for this
> is our brains are smart enough behind the scenes to re-compose the lost data
> from a static crash or what-have-you from the rhythm of the sending and our
> subconscious knowledge of CW. So the letter "K" for instance, even though
> it contains a dit, is hard to mistake for anything else, even if the dit got
> crashed out - your brain would reassemble it as a K based on the timing of
> the two dahs.
>
>
> The deadliest choice is having any letter which ends with one or more dits
> at the end of your call. A call like this is most likely to be made
> unrecognizable, because it is at risk of having a dit eradicated by on-air
> conditions, and there is no letter after it for your brain to re-establish
> the sender's rhythm, leaving the smarter brain with a question mark and the
> less-smart brain with a copying mistake.
>
There is something to be said about callsign familiarity, as a previous
post mentioned. I do have trouble sometimes with the "Z" at the end of my
call on CW, but in contests it seems a lot of people recognize it these
days. In fact, in ARRL DX I had at least 10 people call me by my name!
Some of them are subscribers to this reflector. :-)
73, Zack W9SZ
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