NA QSO Party

[Kris Mraz]

Had lots o'fun in the NA QSO Party. But was off the air for a large part due
to local severe weather. As expected, lots of 6-land participation. Very little
Canadian activity and nil other NA countries. 

Some of the "names" people were using caused a me and others to ask for
repeats, such as "RF", and "ZERO". At 40 wpm I wasn't sure if I had it right.
Even "TREE" (which is a name I'm familiar with) threw me. Seems for a contest
like this they would select the part of their name that is easiest to copy
at high speed. If you're allowed to use nicknames (which the rules seem to
permit) then "DERRICK" should have his friends start calling him "BOB" for
that weekend :-) I should take my own advice because I had a lot of repeats
with my name, simply because its not common.

On a different topic: I'd like to get a "ruling" on the following scenario
which happened during NA QSO Party. Two stations calling CA NA on the same
frequency, not hearing each other. I responded to one just giving my callsign.
Both returned to me with the exchange. I gave my exchange back, both stations
thinking I had responded to them. Should I count both stations as valid
contacts? I know I'll be in both their logs. This must happen all the time 
given the number of contests and the number of QSO's. That's one way to get 
my QSO rate up :-).

Kris, AA5UO
mraz at rockdal.aud.alcatel.com