[CQ-Contest] New Sprint Operating Technique

[k8cc]

This past weekend in the SSB Sprint, I was first exposed to a new operating
technique.  You answer a station's solicitation for a contact and work
him.  According to the Sprint rules this means that he has to QSY but as he
confirms your exchange he asks if you want to work him on another band.

This happened to me twice during the contest.  In both cases I went ahead
and QSYd to make the contact.  However, as I thought about this after the
contest I was bothered by it but wasn't quite sure why.  After all, we had
QSYd far more than the 5 KHz required and wasn't it the same as "moving" a
station like we might do in other contests?

In discussing this at lunch with K9TM, Tim hit the nail on the head.  The
Sprint rules state:

<snip>

11.SPECIAL QSY RULE:

If any station solicits a call (by sending CQ, QRZ?, "going up 5 kHz," QRZ,
or any other means of soliciting a response), he is permitted to work only
one station in response to that           solicitation. He must thereafter
move at least 1 kHz before he works any other station,or at least 5 kHz
before he again solicits other calls. Once a station is required to QSY,
that station is not allowed to make another QSO on the vacated frequency
until or unless at least one subsequent QSO is made on a new frequency at
least 1 kHz or 5 kHz (as appropriate) from the vacated frequency.

<end snip>

The portion of the rule in question is the part that says "He must
thereafter move at least 1 KHz before he works any other station, OR AT
LEAST 5 KHZ BEFORE HE AGAIN SOLICITS OTHER CALLS".  When the station asks
me to call him on a specific frequency on another band, that is a
solicitation for a call.

Rules aside, there are a number of good reasons why you would want to do
this.  To a skilled SO2R practitioner, there's not much difference between
another frequency in a different band and another frequency in the same
band.  They can park the second radio on the "other" band and wait for
their customer to arrive while still QSYing off to seek QSOs on the
original band.  This would seem to speed up the rate.

Only problem is that its against the rules.  As I said, two well-known
stations made such contacts with me in the SSB Sprint.  I think *I'm* OK
because in neither case did I solicit the contact.  The point of this
e-mail is simply to point out that this technique is against the Sprint
rules so that people will not use it.

73,


Dave/K8CC


--
CQ-Contest on WWW:        http://lists.contesting.com/_cq-contest/
Administrative requests:  cq-contest-REQUEST at contesting.com