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Re: [CQ-Contest] QSO B4

To: CQ Contest <cq-contest@contesting.com>
Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] QSO B4
From: "Barry " <w2up@mindspring.com>
Reply-to: w2up@mindspring.com
Date: Wed, 03 Sep 2003 15:38:31 -0000
List-post: <mailto:cq-contest@contesting.com>
Good point Ken. I typically wait one or two QSOs. If I don't hear an 
ID, I'll call. When the DX comes back to me: W2UP 59911 (or 
whatever), my response is: CALL? Most of the time, I'll get the call. 
However, some of these DX hot shots, knowing the CQWW is essentially 
an exchangeless contest, assume my 59905 and send TU. This happens 
less often in ARRL DX as the exchange can't be assumed, unless he's 
worked me on another band.
In any case, if I don't get a call, I don't log the QSO. If it's a 
dupe, wasted time on both ends. If not a dupe, the DX will lose 3 Qs 
for a NIL.  I NEVER  rely on a packet spot for a call (Well, almost 
never. Somehow, I lost a Q in the 2002 CQWW for busting T48K as TV8K -
 Maybe I was very tired at the time...)
73,
Barry W2UP

On 3 Sep 2003 Kenneth E. Harker wrote:

>      My copy of the September/October 2003 National Contest Journal arrived
> yesterday (if you aren't already subscribed to this publication, you should
> be!) and a comment in W9VA's article "ARRL CW DX Contest 2003 from 
> Fernando de Noronha" touched on one of my pet peeves.
> 
>      Bill describes a moment on Sunday morning when a packet spot was sent
> out with his run frequency, but spotting the call A35RK, resulting in having 
> to send "five or six" QSO B4 messages before the pileup subsided.  According
> to Bill, these were stations who "should know better" because they were not
> "bothering to listen for [his] callsign."
> 
>      I have no idea wheter PY0FF was signing every QSO, every-other QSO, or 
> what during that portion of the contest.  But, one of my personal pet peeves
> is stations (usually DX) who sign very infrequently and then get indignant 
> when you dupe them.  Let's say that I tune across a station running stateside
> station in the ARRL DX Contest.  Once he makes two or three QSOs without 
> giving a callsign, I'm faced with the following dilemma.  I could wait until
> he signs (will it be 120 seconds? 180 seconds? who knows?) and risk possibly
> missing it in QRM or static crashes or QSB, or I could call him and know for
> certain in 15 seconds whether I need him (by asking for his callsign) or 
> he's a dupe (because he says QSO B4 or somesuch.)  If I call him and don't 
> get through, I'm no worse off than I was to sit there and listen.
> 
>       So, when I do the calculations in my head, it seems to me that it is 
> clearly in my best interest to just call an infrequently signing station,
> running the risk of an indignant QSO B4 or being thought of as someone
> who "should know better" than to sit there and wait.  If a contest station is 
> signing infrequently, it is assuming that S&P stations will be willing to
> waste their time in order for the run station to save a second or two 
> here or there.  When that gamble fails, getting indignant about it seems to 
> me to be the really rude side of the QSO, not the other way around.
> 
>      For all I know, PY0FF was signing every QSO, in which case the packet
> callers were clearly lids, but all too often with DX stations, it is the 
> infrequent sending of callsign that is to blame.
> 
> -- 
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Kenneth E. Harker      "Vox Clamantis in Deserto"      kharker@cs.utexas.edu
> University of Texas at Austin                   Amateur Radio Callsign: WM5R
> Department of the Computer Sciences          Central Texas DX & Contest Club
> Taylor Hall TAY 2.124                         Maintainer of Linux on Laptops
> Austin, TX 78712-1188 USA            http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/kharker/
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> ---------------------------------------------------------------
>     The world's top contesters battle it out in Finland!
> THE OFFICIAL FILM of WRTC 2002 now on professional DVD and VHS!
>        http://home1.pacific.net.sg/~jamesb/
> ---------------------------------------------------------------
> 
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--
Barry Kutner, W2UP              Internet: w2up@mindspring.com
Newtown, PA                     Frankford Radio Club
         

---------------------------------------------------------------
    The world's top contesters battle it out in Finland!
THE OFFICIAL FILM of WRTC 2002 now on professional DVD and VHS!
       http://home1.pacific.net.sg/~jamesb/
---------------------------------------------------------------

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