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Re: [CQ-Contest] Here's an idea...

To: <ve3xb@rogers.com>, <cq-contest@contesting.com>
Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] Here's an idea...
From: "Bob Shohet, KQ2M" <kq2m@kq2m.com>
Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2018 22:11:09 -0400
List-post: <mailto:cq-contest@contesting.com>
Hi Yuri,

Thank you for your reply and comments.  My participating and sending an unusual 
name was to do something that would both “liven up” the contest and make it 
more fun and challenging, especially for ops with a sense of humor and who were 
up to the “challenge” of copying what was sent not what was already in their 
memory banks.  My judgment was not whether people were able to copy or not 
(although I was surely impressed with those who got it right the first time), 
but rather what they did when they either did not copy it the first time or 
were not sure what I sent.  Good ops – the ones who wanted to get it “right”, 
would ask for a repeat and persist until they got it.  That’s what it’s all 
about - copying what was sent and getting the information correct.
And so you should understand, I didn’t send EEMIO at 40 wpm to someone who was 
cqing at 15 wpm.  I only made about 30 q’s and I only called highly skilled ops 
– the very guys who should have been up to the “challenge”.  It was pretty 
“eye-opening” who got it right, who needed a bunch of repeats, etc.  All in the 
spirit of good fun.

BTW, this is no different than some of the exchanges I get in some contests 
from other ops.  Many guys I know intentionally speed up when they come back to 
me after I call them.  I have heard reports sent to me routinely at 50 – 60 wpm 
and as high as 70 wpm.  And why not?  I can usually get it and it sure makes it 
more interesting for me and them – saves time too.  People have also challenged 
me with unusual and different names in contests – sometimes it takes me a 
couple of repeats but I don’t give up until I get it.  Cool.  And some of the 
callsigns?  Dozens that I have worked that I couldn’t even tell what country 
they were in because the prefix was so unusual and the call was so long (8 or 
more characters).  I just copy what was sent and the log-checkers will know who 
it was.  That’s how I feel about it – I realize that not everyone feels the 
same way.

So to your question.. no – you wouldn’t fail “my” test.  You only “fail” the 
test if the log-checker determines that you didn’t copy the info correctly – 
and the penalty is the loss of the qso plus maybe one or two more.  Not a big 
deal!   

Your examples of policeman and carrier senders are examples or malicious 
interference – prohibited operating under FCC rules, not to mention affecting 
potentially hundreds or thousands of stations.  Not the same thing at all.   

But cranking down the power?  You bet!  Happens to me all the time.  Stations 
testing me at how well I can copy qrp, qrpp, etc.  Often I get an email after 
the contest from someone telling me how they lowered their power to see if I 
could copy them.  Sometimes it costs me a few minutes to get a call correct in 
the contest.  And sometimes I have to give up because I just can’t get it, so I 
lost a few minutes.  Frustrating?  Yes!  Because I want to work everyone, and 
as quickly as possible.  Was someone having “sport” at my expense?  Probably.  
Does it matter to me?  Not at all.  Just part of the contest.

You ask about why I haven’t been at the KCDXC pile-up competition since 1999?  
I absolutely love that “contest”.  I used to stay up in the suite all night 
long talking with friends, doing the pile-up competition.  It was always one of 
the highlights of Dayton for me.  You should know that the very first time that 
I came to Dayton in 1979 when I was 18, I took 3rd place behind N4DW and 
another guy (don’t remember who it was).  Every year after that when I went to 
Dayton I always made sure to compete in it.  I loved it regardless of where I 
finished.  Back to your question....

1998 was my last Dayton.  I started building my station in 1998 before my 
daughter was born.  I used that the Dayton 1999 weekend to build 6 yagis which 
are now up on my two towers.  After that I was too busy with my young daughter 
and my professional work to go back.  So it has been 20 years since I was last 
at Dayton and the KCDXC pileup competition.  The last 10 years I have not been 
healthy enough to travel that distance even if I wanted to go.  Three (four?) 
auto-immune illnesses, several major surgeries and numerous severe ongoing 
health problems later, I am just happy to be alive and occasionally still 
operating contests.

As much as I have loved the KCDXC pileup competition and the evening long 
festivities – some of which I remember ending well after dawn  :-) , it would 
not be one of my greatest comebacks.  Just surviving and then being able to 
operate again after each of the past three auto-immune illnesses nearly ended 
my life, are my greatest comebacks – and hopefully I will not need to make a 
fourth for a very long time.  

You won’t see me at any future KCDXC pileup competitions and now you know why.  
But I will be definitely be there in spirit!

73

Bob  KQ2M


From: Yuri VE3XB 
Sent: Tuesday, March 20, 2018 9:02 PM
To: 'Bob Shohet, KQ2M' ; cq-contest@contesting.com 
Subject: RE: [CQ-Contest] Here's an idea...

Bob,

 

Thanks for the response and sharing your opinion. Very interesting concept 
indeed.


For the sake of argument I will agree that I was wrong and you, having so many 
QSOs during your contesting career, are entitled to start judging the skills 
and abilities of the other people. And this is not arrogance, not at all.

 

Also, I'm on your side regarding actual copying of the exchange during a 
contest and not just hitting the "Enter" key.

 

But let's go back to the original post where all that started. During NAQP in 
order to make a valid contact we need to copy call-sign, name and QTH, right? 
So let's assume that I copied from you: KQ2M, EEMIO and CT. Before logging this 
QSO, I check what is typed in and I can see your call, your state BUT, being 
CANADIAN who came from EASTERN EUROPE, I don't recognize any name. So what do I 
do - I ask for the repeat and therefore failing your "test". Failing not 
because I miscopied the information you've sent, but because I've never been to 
Haiti! Kool, isn't it?

 

Due to aging HAM radio population we getting more and more experienced 
operators who tend to become "On The Air" policemen and judges checking on 
others. Some, for example, can put kilowatt carrier on DX frequency and they 
don't mean harm to us, just "testing" our ability to copy weak signals from 
under the jamming interference. The others crank output power down to 
milliwatts to check your receiving abilities. All of them don’t care about 
scores – they just having good time…

 

Back to the Subject.

 

Bob, to test our and your own copying skills why don't you come to Crown Plaza 
on May 19th after the Contest Dinner for annual Kansas City DX Club Pile-Up 
competition? There is going to be crowd of great people who came from all over 
the world, many friends, lots of fun, camaraderie and booze. Everyone is equal 
- doesn't matter how much $$$ invested in aluminum, equipment and location, 
whether you are from right or wrong coast - 5 minutes of adrenalin rush and 
your results are there. You used to attend this contest but for some reason 
stopped coming in 1999. After ten years it could be one of your greatest 
comebacks. Hope to see you there.

 

Cheers and 73,

 

Yuri VE3XB

 

 

From: Bob Shohet, KQ2M [mailto:kq2m@kq2m.com] 



 

Yuri, it amazes me that some people make comments before thinking about what 
they actually write and those same people often make assumptions about what 
they are writing before having any information.

 

By definition, contests are about testing your skills and the skills of others. 
 What makes a contest valid is the test of actually COPYING information 
correctly not just relying on the computer to fill it in for you when you press 
“enter”. 

 

And because I send with my keyer and not my keyboard, whatever I send, I have 
to send myself correctly at whatever speed I am sending it.  You can be sure 
that tests my skill plenty – and after 900,000+ CONTEST qso’s, about 600,000 of 
which were made on cw, the last time that I checked, I was still doing pretty 
well in the skill category.   So NO, it is not like “QRP ops..... “yada, yada, 
yada”.  I am actually sending exchanges, NOT my computer and .

you might do well to ask next time before you assume.  There are few people 
alive who have made as many CW qso’s as I have and probably no one has ever 
made as many cw qso’s as me by sending with their keyer rather than their 
keyboard/computer.

 

I am sure that the Haitian man named Eemio that I knew would take issue with 
your characterization of “this kind of joke”.  There are MANY names which are 
unfamiliar to most Americans/Canadians/Eastern Europeans, etc., I certainly 
don’t think that choosing to use an actual name is a joke - either to send or 
receive.  Waste of “valuable” time?  Hardly!  If you know what the exchange is 
before it is even sent then what is actually being tested?   Certainly not 
COPYING skill; the only thing being “tested” is having enough coordination to 
use the keyboard/computer to log for you.

 

I would never begrudge anyone sending me an unusual name or a name that I 
didn’t expect, any more than I would begrudge an operator from using qrp or 
qrpp.  Actually, many lower power guys call me because they know that I will 
listen for them and take the time and make the effort to dig them out – many 
stations won’t do that.  I certainly don’t complain about it or make the 
statement that you did:  

 

“if you weren't expecting this kind of joke during contest rush. It just waste 
of valuable time, nothing more”. 

 

You might want to reconsider that  – it sounds pretty arrogant.

 

I thinks it’s nice that low power guys or people with unusual callsigns would 
call me even though the burden falls on me (and others) to get their callsign 
and information correctly through the contest levels of qrm, qrn, and qsb.  I 
appreciate that they are in the contest and raising the level of activity for 
all participants.  And copying 599TT1 or 59950MW is a lot more interesting than 
599KW.  Same with working TG0FRACAP or any of hundreds of unusual and never 
before heard callsigns that we are not expecting.

 

I get that some people don’t like to be “challenged” by something unusual.  
Yeah, it isn’t easy and slows down the rate.  And some people don’t have a 
sense of humor about some things, and aren’t very tolerant or forgiving.  But 
really, this is only a contest.  It isn’t about truly important stuff like a 
person’s health or safety or family.   Life’s too short to argue about contest 
exchanges.  

 

73

 

Bob KQ2M

 

 

From: Yuri VE3XB 

Sent: Sunday, March 18, 2018 11:07 PM

To: cq-contest@contesting.com 

Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] Here's an idea...

 

Always amazes me. 

Some smart guy comes up with "brilliant" idea and he starts testing everyone 
else skills but not his own... It's like QRP ops keep complaining about  big 
gun stations that couldn't copy their tiny signals but never call weak stations 
themselves. 

As a member of QRQ club I can copy CW at 40 wpm and higher speeds but I would 
definitely make sure that I copied EEMIO right and will ask for the repeat. 
Nothing wrong with that, especially if you weren't expecting this kind of joke 
during contest rush. It just waste of valuable time, nothing more. On the other 
hand if I had nothing better to do I would come back with some fancy name (like 
Enine, my old friend's name, for example) and see how well the joker will copy 
it. Not sure he will.

I guess that most people care about how to get contest exchange copying easier 
for their party, but looks like some think otherwise, having fun at someone 
else expense...


73 Yuri VE3XB

-----Original Message-----
From: CQ-Contest [mailto:cq-contest-bounces@contesting.com] On Behalf Of Bob 
Shohet, KQ2M

A lot time ago in the CW Sprint, I used EEMIO (sent at 40+ wpm of course  :-) 
and Scandalla amongst other names.  EEMIO was pretty funny – almost impossible 
to copy correctly at that speed – it was a true test of operator skill and 
honesty.  Skill to get it right the first time and honesty to ask again for it 
when they weren’t sure that they got it right.  As you would expect, the best 
ops got it right on the first or second try, most of the rest either needing 
MANY repeats (clearly expecting Bob) or just faking it and sending “r’” or 
“tu”.  I used other unusual names as well to “test” the ops.  I was more 
interested in having fun with that than achieving a good score.

Once in the mid-80’s, on the way back home after a YCCC meeting in Mass., I 
operated for an hour at Hal, W1NN’s station in CT, and worked K8CC on two bands 
with two different names.  When I got back to eastern Long Island in NY (where 
I was living at the time), I then worked K8CC again on a 3rd band using a 
different name from another state.  So I worked Dave a total of three times - 
from two different states on three bands and with three different names (one 
name per band).

Dave being the FB op that he is, correctly copied each name change and state 
change.  I’m pretty sure that Dave still remembers that contest.   :-)

73

Bob KQ2M
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