I feel like Hans has taken an undeserved beating here.
I suspect that Hans' viewpoint derives from his being a really good
operator who does not guess (maybe personality; maybe Navy radioman
background; probably some of both).
Indeed, I suspect that Hans does not realize how much other op's were, in
fact, guessing (never mind the outright cheating). To put it more
charitably, too many op's did not realize how hard you were supposed to
work to copy correctly.
Nothing -- nothing -- is sure in this world. It's always a tradeoff
between the cost of extra info and the cost of being wrong.
I recall a story about a certain still-active good operator from one of the
big Multi-Multi stations, back in the days of paper logs and BIG volume
from Japan on 15M SSB... and no penalties for busted calls. A new hotshot
at a rival M-M had been thrashing the old guy on 15M in the last several
SSB 'Tests. The experienced guy got a chance to listen to the new
hotshot running Japan on 15M. He was busting a lot of calls.
I recall also my SS CW 2013 experience at VE4EA. I did not work quite as
hard at copying as I do at home. I was willing to risk a little
more penalty because, besides wanting to "win", I did not want anybody to
lose the MB multiplier because of my ineptness. (Yes, you could argue that
if I can't hear him well enough to copy him, then he does not deserve the
QSO. I tried not to be overly liberal -- only taking a little more risk,
but not logging a QSO when I knew I did not have it right.)
(BTW, I took a lot of heat here myself for wanting to make sure after SS
SSB 2014 that I really did QSO VE8DAV. "If you were not sure, why did you
log the QSO?" Well, I was sure enough -- I had double checked. But my
attempt at a triple check gave no info. Part of my calculation was that I
needed the NT mult. The purpose of my after-contest query was only to find
out if I should order a Clean Sweep mug that might be undeserved.)
73, Art K3KU
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