I agree with the comments regarding DX stations not signing there call
enough times. I am fairly new
to contesting (3 years) but have more than one top-ten finish to my credit
in the major DX contests.
I cannot emphasize enough how irritating it is to me when I am hunting
multipliers and have to
break my rhythm tuning up/down the band because some jerk decides everyone
must know *his*
call already. There were several offenders this past weekend in the SSB
contest. While the allure
of continuing to run stations without a break may be the reason behind it,
how many contacts do these
guys lose because a potentially unworked station got stepped on by someone
asking "what's your call"?
Obviously, if you dupe this guy later, it's his fault but he thinks you are
a lid...go figure. This issue may
never be resolved, and is only part of a greater set of lousy operating
practices that exist.
Among the most annoying things heard this weekend are the
following:
1) not ID'ing enough
2) failing to ask if a frequency was in use, and then me
losing 2 minutes chasing
the offender off...I am not QRP, I operated with big
antennas this weekend,
and the guy's were loud to me indicating they didn't
bother to listen AT ALL
before opening up
3) USA stations calling in the 80 meter DX window
73 de J.P. AA2DU
74660.2606@compuserve.com
PS: Stop crying about 48 vs 24 hours in these contests. The rules are fine
the way they are. If you only
want (or can) operate 24 hours that is your business, but you shouldn't be
rewarded for a 50% effort.
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