This years top band contest was a mixed experience. On one hand, a WW contest
is always a thrill, but on the other hand this one was very frustrating. Why?
Too many stations on too little room. This leads to a situation where you have,
within minutes after the contest started, a string of pearls of strong
(overpowering) stations continuously calling CQ TEST, often not hearing
stations coming back to them. My frustration was that I heard weaker US
stations calling under the strong europeans. If I tried to call one of them I
immediately heard the europoean cry "QSY"
or "LID" or ... Evidently he did not even hear the other station.
This overcrowded situation made it possible for some people to think that it is
OK to start calling CQ TEST 100 Hz from another station.If a "rare one" popped
up somewhere on the band there was, within half a minute, a number of very
strong europeans calling him (although they were not actually taking part in
the contest). Of course there are some "dx-fishers" standing by all the time
ready to catch the rare dx. But what a noise! I am 100% sure that many of the
"dx-fishers" did not even hear the rare one. KG4SB showed up working americans
and this caused total chaos in Europe. Stations were calling and calling (i.e.
his own callsign 3 times with slow cw. Meanwhile KG4SB had made 2 or 3 qsoÂs
with US-stns.
There is probably not much to do about this situation but a) donÂt call if you
donÂt hear the dx and b) make ONE call (not two or three).
The discussion about DX windows earlier on this forum was interesting. I think
that in the future with contests on one band, we must develope some system with
dx-windows but how? Who knows!
Carl SM6CPY
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