[CQ-Contest] WAE QTCs , summary

[Clive Whelan]

Thanks to all who offered their experience on this subject.

The number of respondents is not sufficiently large to quote 
percentages, suffice it to say that a simple majority say that 
they *do* take the QTCs direct to the keyboard.

Those who report difficulty with this process are almost 
exclusively over 50 years of age. It may well be that there some 
over fifties who have no trouble, but they didn't report their 
age! There seems little doubt therefore that age is a 
significant factor in copying fast CW to keyboard. Other 
information supplied, also indicates that "copying behind" is an 
important asset in this process.

One notable exception to the first part of the above, was an 
over fifty who learned keyboarding as a computer programmer back 
in the 1960s, although not as a touch typist per se. These 
keyboarding skills were acquired not long after reaching a CW 
copying speed of 25wpm. Making a somewhat unjustified 
associative leap therefore, it may well be important to have 
acquired keboarding skills before learning CW, or at least not 
long afterwards. This would almost certainly include those who 
got their licences after 1990, and perhaps prior to that date..

Several US operators kindly enquired how they might help the 
Europeans take the QTCs, and indeed themselves suggested that 
greater than standard word spacing between the groups might be 
helpful as an option in the QTC sending programme. One even 
offered to bend the ear of the author of a major contest logger; 
above and beyond! From my personal perspective , going (say) 10% 
QRS immediately after being asked for a repeat would be a useful 
feature, perhaps reverting when it becomes clear that the Eu 
station id now copying 100% ( for whatever reason). This just 
seems like common sense that we would all use in normal QSO when 
copy becomes tough.

Several DX  stations also expressed amazement that so many Eu 
stations could copy QTCs 100% at 40 wpm or more, *never* asking 
for a repeat. This begged the question, as to whether any of 
these stations might not actually be copying the QTCs at all, 
perhaps just going along for the ride to accept QTCs from the DX 
station, and thus "help out". I certainly hope this is not true.

This  begged the further question, as to what checking process 
the DARC employs for the QTC process at either end of the chain. 
A particular case might be where a Eu station accepts ( and 
copys!) a block of QTCs, but then does not submit an entry. Does 
the Dx station lose credit for these QTCs, and if so is that 
fair? It seems that there is absolutely no information available 
on this subject, which in this era of close scrutiny of checking 
systems and their criticism  ( e.g. CQWW UBNs), does not seem 
reasonable.

Perhaps there is someone from the DARC following this thread who 
could comment; I do hope so.

Nearly all respondents commented how challenging they found the 
WAE contest   ( from either side), but nevertheless how much 
they enjoyed it, and valued the uniqueness that the QTC process 
imparts to WAE.

73

Clive

GW3NJW
gw3njw at gw7x.org
Contest Cambria-http://www.gw7x.org


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