I was gonna say, I heard a little bit of everything in this one.  
Automatic CQ loops with bug exchanges.  Slow but perfect straight key 
exchanges with (by our standards, meaning a CK in this century), and even a 
couple of "circa WB2EUF" chirpy signals that drifted through then out of my 
passband during the exchange.  Sometimes it doesn't seem like it, but the 
CWops and SKCC orgs are turning out a fair number of competent cw operators.
It was interesting how many of the folks would resend the entire exchange, no 
matter what I asked for in a repeat.  I guess not everybody recognizes the 
NTS Radiogram format anymore :(
73
Steve KL7SB
 
On Mon, 6 Nov 2017 12:07:14 -0800, "Eric Gruff"  wrote:
I agree with the part about it being easier to find open spots on the bandmap 
to run. It’s also a function of having panadapters that let you just point and 
click to the empty spots.
However, there was no shortage of bug and straight key (or maybe they just 
soldered a phone plug onto a piece of zip cord and touched the wires together 
to send?) users who adopted the “a dash should be about 1.2 times longer than a 
dot” when sending exchanges. I had one fellow who was S9+, but decided to send 
serial number 9 as “009” with his straight key, and it took about five repeats 
to figure it out. I sent “nr 9?”, and he sent “009” over and over, which also 
could have been “090”, “099”, “090”, etc. This was hours into the contest, so I 
couldn’t rule out anything. I sure won’t be surprised if the contact comes up 
busted.
Then there were folks who when asked to repeat “PREC”, sent everything but 
that. I got the entire exchange again twice, callsigns, “?” (probably a lot of 
folks who don’t know what precedence is), and silence. I guess that’s why SS is 
so challenging.
I still had a lot of fun. I could have won the whole thing if the sun hadn’t 
gotten into my eyes. 😉
Eric NC6K
Message: 3
Date: Sun, 5 Nov 2017 18:23:32 -0500
From: "Randy Thompson K5ZD"  >
To: 'Radio K?HB'  >, "'CQ-Contest'"
 >
Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] Be careful what you wish for
Message-ID: <008501d3568d$18529880$48f7c980$@charter.net  >
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
I was thinking the same thing. The bands just don't sound as crowded as I 
remember them 20+ years ago. We sure miss all those 1x3 calls that used bugs 
and had been doing SS forever.
Randy, K5ZD
> -----Original Message-----
> From: CQ-Contest [mailto:cq-contest-bounces@contesting.com] On Behalf
> Of Radio K?HB
> Sent: Sunday, November 05, 2017 4:39 PM
> To: CQ-Contest
> Subject: [CQ-Contest] Be careful what you wish for
>
> Do you remember when you wished that it was easy to find a good clear
> QRG to run in SSCW?
>
> 73, de Hans, K?HB
> "Just a boy and his radio"?
>
> _______________________________________________
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> CQ-Contest@contesting.com 
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