[CQ-Contest] CW spacing?

[Tim Totten, N4GN]

K1AM made the following interesting comments in his 3830 posting of his SS
CW results:

> . . . I don't understand why some clowns insist on moving 100 cycles
> from you when you're cq'ing and then when they do get replies to their
> cq's they ask for many repeats. Many years ago they could have used
> the excuse that they didn't hear me. That doesn't fly anymore and
> hasn't for many years. I told a few who were too close that the qrg
> was qrl and they cq'ed in my face. I find that zero'ing in and calling
> cq will usually get them to move. :-)

I had only two run-ins this weekend, but they were both with guys who have
a long history of top ten finishes (neither being K1AM--I just picked up
on his comments).  Those encounters left me wondering how close is too
close on CW?  It also causes me to suspect that a number of folks are not
being careful to ensure that their receive bandpass is centered around
their transmit freq (more on this below).

When I'm looking for a "hole" in which to CQ, I generally try to find two
stations at least 650 or 700 Hz apart, then I put myself inbetween them.  
In my mind, 325-350 Hz separation is a reasonable spacing in a major
contest.  Sure, I'd love to have 600-700 Hz clear on either side of me,
but I don't think it's reasonable to expect that.

In one of the cases this weekend, I found such a hole and I began CQing in
the middle.  I could just barely detect the presence of the guys on each
side of me, slightly outside my passband.  This is with stacked 500 Hz
filters, so my - 6 dB points are somewhere around 200-225 Hz on either
side.  I made a couple of QSOs and all seemed fine, then someone sent
"N4GN DO U HV A RCVR?"  I replied in the affirmative.  Then he sent
something to the effect of "U ARE QRMING MY FREQ", then he slid back up to
where he had been and called CQ again.  I sent "SRI (name) I AM 300 HZ
BELOW U".  I moved down another 60-70 Hz and never heard from him again.

If I could just barely detect his signal, he should not have been having
such heartburn over my presence.  My guess is that either he has really
poor selectivity, or probably more likely, he has his PBT/IF shift/slope
tuning or similar adjustment out of whack.  On many radios, I've noticed
that if you "center" all the knobs, the receive passband is actually not
centered around your transmit freq.  This can also be related to the way
CW pitch is implemented (or not implemented at all) in some rigs.

All this is my opinion, of course, but if your receive passband runs from
350 Hz below your frequency to 150 Hz above your frequency, you shouldn't
complain to me if I CQ 325 Hz below you.

Comments?  How close is too close?  Is this "passband centering" a
problem?

73,

Tim Totten, n4gn at n4gn.com
http://www.n4gn.com


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>From Mike Tessmer" <k9nw at qth.com  Wed Nov  8 02:34:26 2000
From: Mike Tessmer" <k9nw at qth.com (Mike Tessmer)
Date: Tue, 7 Nov 2000 21:34:26 -0500
Subject: [CQ-Contest] Shorten CW SS
Message-ID: <005e01c0492c$97de70a0$83f3343f at default>


At what Sunday QSO rate is SS:

   a) acceptable.....don't change a thing?
   b) boring.....needs to be fixed?



Mike K9NW


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