ORIGINAL MESSAGE:
On Sun, 27 Sep 2009 16:20:08 -0700, Kok Chen <chen@mac.com> wrote:
>Lets use rational dialog instead of scare tactics.
>
>You seem to think that a FIGS before the 599 can get wipe out by noise
>and thus cause an "TOOAWT." And yet a FIGS after a space character in
>a USOS exchange does not?
REPLY:
I'm all in favor of rational dialog. Here is some:
My objection is the use of hyphens or slashes or periods to separate the
elements of an exchange, such as 599-25-25 or 599/25/25 etc. If QRN or QRM wipes
out the FIGS shift just before the 599, either of the above will print as
TOOAWTAWT. Anyone who has worked many JA stations in a contest has seen this
many, many times. (JA is zone 25 in this example. Other countries and zones have
the same issue).
By comparison, if USOS is enabled for both TX and RX and the exchange is sent as
599 25 25, and the same FIGS shift takes a hit, the print will be TOO 25 25.
Which is more readable? The answer is obvious.
Experienced ops have seen TOOAWTAWT so many times they know how to interpret it,
but newcomers do not. The result is many requests for repeats. Even just one
request for a repeat wipes out any advantage gained from dozens of hyphens.
My comments are not "scare tactics". I have over 50,000 RTY contest QSOs in the
log spanning the last 16 years. I have seen this problem over and over and I
know absolutely that USOS goes a long way toward alleviating it. But for USOS to
work there must be spaces between the elements of a macro, and not hyphens,
slashes or any other character.
As for your comment "With that extra FIGS in your exchange, you are just
introducing a higher probability of a bad exchange, Bill.", I disagree. What you
are REALLY introducing is redundancy, and in this case redundancy is your
friend.
It's as simple as that.
73, Bill W6WRT
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