Just finished the IOTA contest. I was using 2S0F. I thought that might
generate a bit of interest. Within an hour I realised I had made a big
mistake. To then have to run for another 23 hours hating your own callsign
required more motivation than I could muster! I have two serious points I
want to shout out from my soap-box...
Two-letter technique:
Where did this technique of shouting out 2 letters come from? There you are
with a very slow run, no great pile up, and an individual will shout' Bravo
Whisky' at you. So you just send the QSO details anyway, and spend another
40 seconds establishing who this idiot is 'cos he's gone down in QSB, only
to then discover that you've already worked him.
Not giving callsigns:
An expedition station was running a big pile-up on Saturday. I won't say
who. They worked for about 4 minutes just running 'stations with number 1 in
the call, QRZ'. They then gave their call once and I (and the rest of the
world) missed it because of the continuous European wall of noise. I then
heard a few guys asking him for his call again. He said 'I'll give you my
call when I'm ready', and continued to work 'stations with 2 in the call'.
This technique and arrogant behaviour, is awful in a contest. I've got (say)
a 3 in my call, he's working 4's. I'm loud and I know I can work him easily.
What should I do (once I've established who the guy is)? Just sit and wait
until he's finished working everybody that ever held a radio licence? I can
understand how not giving your call often will tend to suppress a lot of the
callers, and hence control a pile up, but only until the waiting hoard has
had enough and starts shouting for his callsign. And since when did lists
and running by numbers ever help the run rate?
Now the guys that do these things are intelligent fellows - they passed an
exam to get their licence. When will they realise that two letters only and
stupid list systems do not increase your run rate, which is the objective in
a contest? There MUST be a way of teaching operating technique to radio
amateurs. Otherwise we have a hobby totally out of control. I could go on...
Stewart
GM4AFF
(2S0F last weekend - but never again!)
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