To correct or not, what is the answer?

[Richard Norton]

>During the CW Sprint, several stations incorrectly responded to me by
>sending KN5S instead of KN5H. This is a common occurrence but this time it
>was very frequent. For the first hour or so of the contest I would correct
>my call by slowing down the keyer and sending KN5 E E E E. Soon thereafter,
>I decided to stop wasting time and just let the other station log whatever
>he thought I was sending.

I believe that changing speed to KN5EEEE is merely confusing.

I would recommend sending your call twice at the start of your exchange,
and once again as you would during the exchange. Sending your call twice
at the start says, "Something is wrong. Guys in the Sprint are good
operators. If a guy is sending me his call twice, at the start, he is
trying to tell me something." Even the lowest-level operators in the 
Sprint are pretty good, and they'll understand.

Regular QSO:

WB0XYZ 381 Steve NM KN5H

QSO Where he has your call wrong:

de KN5H KN5H WB0XYZ 381 Steve NM KN5H

This takes 5 seconds more.

With N6AR, N6AW, N2AA, N4AA, and N8AA active in contests, it
often happens to me, although it didn't this time. 

1) at what point do you stop correcting others? They may
>have an H in their head but messed up on the transmitting back to me part.

You never stop correcting until they have your call right, or you
are willing to scratch the contact. 

>2) What do the log checkers do with these busted QSOs if indeed they are
>busted?

This is actually something that has been debated recently among
log-checkers. I will say that I think the trend is going toward
requiring that the call be correct for you to receive credit in
the contests that I am involved with.

3) Can the log checkers penalize me for these discrepancies?

Again, it's under debate, but computerized scoring will
probably mean you stand a good chance of being penalized.

For example, the WRTC competitors were penalized when the
other stations got their call wrong.

Computers are being used more and more for log-checking. If you
think somehow N6AA should receive contact credit, when N6AA is
not-in-a-log but either N2AA, N4AA, N8AA, N6AR, or N6AW are,
try to put yourself in the position of a programmer who
has to write a log-checking and scoring computer program.

>de Steve  KN5H

73,

Dick Norton, N6AA,     ae327 at LAFN.ORG

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