On Thu, Jan 14, 2010 at 12:44 PM, <VE4XT> wrote:
> I'm with Lindquist on this one: ham radio contests aren't typing class.
> Never were, never should be. As long as it's an honest typo, where it's
> clear that the operator did indeed copy correctly but merely typed
> incorrectly, changing an O to a zero is fair game.
> It's really no different than in the paper days of logging when we would,
> while poring over dupe sheets (anyone remember those?) clarify what was
> written. We weren't changing what we copied, we were only making sure we
> could read it. Nobody claimed then that contesting was an exercise in
> penmanship!
Cleaning up sloppy penmanship is different from changing what you
typed (or wrote).
K1AR once said "All you have to do is copy the call and type it into
the computer. It doesn't seem like too much to ask ops to do those two
things correctly." Put that way, it's hard for me to disagree with
him, and I don't scan my log for typos after the contest. I sometimes
lose a few QSOs in a contest for fat-fingering and maybe a mult or
two. I can live with that.
I don't think I've ever moved down a notch due to typing errors.
Even the highest contest run rates I have ever heard of (490
QSOs/hour) are quite easily two-finger hunt-and-peck typeable.
Assume you are in an ARRL DX contest, working exclusively 6-letter
calls at 500 per hour, and having to type a two-letter state
abbreviation (plus the ENTER), that's 4500 characters per hour, 90
words per hour (at 5 per word), or 1.5 words per minute. Or take
SS...assume you are running all 6-letter callsigns, all with 4-digit
serial numbers, 3-letter section abbreviations at 300/hour. 4800
characters/hour, 96 words per hour...
Neither of these is much of a typing test.
73,
Doug K1DG
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