N6AA QRQ reply

[Marijan.Miletic at IJS.si]

Hi Contesters,

The following text was written on 12. 8. 1994 at 10:39Z but failed to reach
reflector.  After reading interesting contributions from W6 & rest of the 
world, I feel that reposting is justified.

With the benefit of hindsight, this WAE was tough because of the poor condx!
Leading S5 stations made <10 QSO on 10m and we had terible storm on Saturday.
Everybody was on packet but leading stations did not give many DX spots!

NOW THE ORIGINAL TEXT!

Our distinguishe fellow contester Dick, N6AA makes a long provoking comment 
on WAE permission of packet spoting for single op.  With all due respect,
in this particular contest I would give more weight to EU feelings than
"black hole W6".  WAE has been my favored contest for over 30 years!

As WAE is now 48 hours EU to rest of the world DX contest in the midlle 
of the summer, it will become even more boring pleading for QTC as we
run out of stations quickly.  We badly need 80/40m mults but we can hardly
afford second RX (as well as good telecomms like USA).  DX packet helps a
great deal to jump on another band just to pick-up multiplier as it is
again ALLOWED by WAE rules.
 
>Back in ancient times, single-operator meant that a single
>operator did all the operating. But finding multipliers and
>identifying stations were the hardest parts of contest operating,
>and only the skilled guys, who worked hard, would win. We've come
>a long way from there, baby.
 
I congartulate operators skill but I also give great emphasis on all
the technical means available to improve the station (stacked beams,
memory keyers, DSP filters, PACKET RADIO but NO GASS).

>Note that, in addition to making for bigger scores and more fun,
>the packet spots actually result in improved logging accuracy,
>especially on CW, during times when your code reader may not be
>performing well. This can be important in some of the other
>world-class contests where they check the log entries.
 
Unfortunately, this is far from truth!  My DSP code reader works better
and faster than me in pile-ups (I was EU champ twice) and never gets bored!
I recent CQ WW I picked VP9MZ mult from DXC, worked him in poor condx and
with his PROBLEMATIC keying on 20m and later on lower bands in even worse condx
(call was stored by my own contest program) just to learn that it was VP9ML.
I could have done better without DXC and even computer but I loved it both!
BTW, I was rated 3rd in OH2MM contest accuracy evaluation with < 1.5% errors!

>Numero uno--what a feeling! 

Well, I didn't feel I should let my computer doing contest and steal my hobby!
But the director of big contests K3EST was given input for thinking about 
future new class!

I use DX Cluster even more than my radio!  In the contests it is helping me 
making better score just like my IC-735 made in Japan and SB-220 & TH6DXX 
made in USA by OTHER people!

73 de Mario, S56A, S57MM, N1YU, ex YU3EA, YU1PCF.

email: Marijan.Miletic at IJS.SI