[CQ-Contest] Ethical question

[Kenneth Earl Harker]

   This happened to me once during ARRL DX SSB.

   I was calling CQ to Japan (If I remember correctly) and a weak station
was trying to call me, but the signal was just at the noise floor and 
I couldn't seem to get the suffix right - it seemed like the signal peaked
only on the prefix for some frustrating reason...  But, the other station kept 
at it and so did I, and this went for a several rounds without progress.
Suddenly, I hear a loud (unidentified, but obviously North American) station
come on and tell me "It's japan romeo three november zulu charlie*."

   I wasn't really sure what to do - I informed the loud station that I didn't 
need the help - after all, the point of the contest is to establish two 
way contact with other stations _without_ the use of retransmitting stations,
right?  I was in a dillemma, though.  I hadn't really copied the station call
yet, so I didn't want to just send a report, but how could I now copy the 
station's call on my own without knowing that the unsolicited help influenced
my ability to complete the QSO?  

   I ended up sending off the call given to me and got some "QSL"s back and 
we went on and the exchange only took a couple of tries.  

   But the question is - what should I have done?  What is the "right" response
to this?  Is it a busted QSO the moment the unsolicited "helpful" station
opens his mouth?  That hardly seems fair to me.  On the other hand, once the
help has been given, who can quantify the value it might have provided 
in completing the QSO?  Is this similar to only really copying the other
station's call because you heard another W/VE work them and heard the W/VE say 
it?

   I am assuming that the "helpful" station really did mean well, but it 
sure opens up a lot of questions for me.


* It wasn't really JR3NZC, I'm just using a convenient JA call because I
don't remember the specific call in question...

-- 
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Kenneth E. Harker      "Vox Clamantis in Deserto"      kharker at cs.utexas.edu
University of Texas at Austin                  Amateur Radio Callsign: KM5FA
Department of the Computer Sciences         President, UT Amateur Radio Club
Taylor Hall TAY 2.124               Maintainer of the Linux Laptop Home Page
Austin, TX 78712-1188 USA            http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/kharker/
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