I too have a soft spot in my heart for cut numbers. I rarely use them
other than 5nn, however once I used them in a cwops mini test to send my
member number, which is 1013, or ATAV. It elicited lots of fills and
overall slowed my rate.
When I'm running and someone sends cut numbers it usually causes me to do a
double-take, but maybe that's because I'm habituated to contest CW that
falls into a predictable pattern. Would I be able to copy someone sending
something that was not part of the exchange? As a cw operator I'd like to
be able to copy whatever gets sent at me, and have my fingers and brain
cooperate. If I'm sending at 35 WPM I should be able to copy whatever
comes back at 35WPM or slower. Not to say I can always do that, but that's
the goal.
If my brain is too slow to copy ATAV and parse it to 1013, then I have some
more work to do, or maybe I should QRS. This sentiment is a bit too harsh
b/c when 99% of contest participants send numbers as numbers, of course
there will be fills and confusion. But what if a contest *required* cut
numbers or if they were used by >50% of participants? Would my CW skills
be up to standard and ready for solid copy? I hope so, which is why it's
hard for me to begrudge others using them.
>From an information redundancy perspective, it may be beneficial to send
the cut number several times instead of sending the actual number once. It
depends on the distribution of static crashes and when the station a few
hundred Hertz up the band starts CQing again...
In the case of 1013 vs ATAV, the cut number is less than half the "CW
weight" of 1013. So I consider ATAV to have a more sophisticated
redundancy scheme... It places all the information in the first half and
second half of the transmission, compared with traditional numbers where
any bit of loss can create ambiguity. I often mix up 9s and 0s because of a
static crash...
5NN 1013
5NN ATAV ATAV
If we lived on a planet where cut numbers weren't so unfamiliar, the second
example might result in fewer errors.
Anyway, apologies but I can't resist playing the devil's advocate. I would
enjoy the challenge of participating in a contest in which cut numbers were
recommended for sending serial numbers.
Though in my opinion there is absolutely no good reason to use cut numbers
when sending a callsign.
73,
Matt NQ6N
On Mon, Dec 15, 2014 at 10:38 PM, Marvin Bloomquist <n5aw@281.com> wrote:
>
> This has been about beaten to death but there are occasional instances
> where I find cut numbers N and T helpful.
> - if someone insists on leading zeros I prefer they use T - the normal
> zero can sound like a 1 or 9 from a weak station
> - when a station is weak and copy is difficult and it takes several
> repeats to get the serial number, using T or N - like different phonetics
> on phone - can help.
> Marv N5AW
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