"QRL?" is unambiguous. A simple "?" may be open to interpretation.
During sweepstakes, I had a psychic contact with VY1EI. I only have wire
antennas, they aren't positioned the best in the world to get to that
corner of the world on that band, and it wasn't the right time of day.
Tuning up the band, I heard him faintly calling CQ, didn't hear anyone
calling him. I didn't think he'd hear me and wouldn't have tried if he was
busy with other stations...but under the circumstances I figured it would
be worth a shot. I had never worked VY1 before. I threw out my call
figuring there was nothing to lose by trying, and he came back.
It was a long contact because our mutual telepathy was pretty slow. As he
was sending his information, someone stopped on the frequency and called,
"QRL?" presumably because I was listening and the VY1 was very faint and
the frequency would have sounded empty. Because I was concentrating on
hearing what was being sent, it took me a moment to move over to the key
and send "QRL VY1EI PSE AGN AGN".
Had the other station simply sent "?" and quickly progressed into calling
CQ....well, perhaps he would have stopped if I responded with a QRL,
perhaps VY1EI would have broken off and started resending
the exchange information. Who knows? Chaos could have ensued, slowing
down what was already a very slow contact. (Like I said, I wouldn't have
tried it if he had been busy. I play to have fun, not to drag others'
rates down.)
The "QRL?"/"QRL" exchange made it possible to be very, very clear about
whose frequency it was and what was going on. A simple "?" could have
far too many meanings -- "is this frequency free?" / "could you send that
again?" / "who are you?" / "would you like some Grey Poupon?", Given the
vagaries of propagation, attempting to infer the meaning from context could
lead to an incorrect result, wasting time.
(In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that I miscopied
VY1EI's class during that exchange. It would have been better for my
score if the other station had usurped the frequency.)
--
*Michael D. Adams* (N1EN)
Poquonock, Connecticut | mda@n1en.org
On Tue, Jan 15, 2013 at 5:50 PM, Paul O'Kane <pokane@ei5di.com> wrote:
> In any case, why does anyone send "QRL?" on CW
> when an initial "?" is enough?
>
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