[CQ-Contest] ROTTEN OPERATING

[Bill at ng3k.com]

On 31 Dec 2001 at 22:15, Tom Frenaye wrote:

> One way to avoid this is to only answer the DX station if they have your callsign correct.   Sounds simple, right?
> 
>  If someone comes back to K1KS, I can take a couple of different courses of action:
> 
> 1) Answer, give my exchange and give my callsign at least once.   Hope the other station confirms.
> 
> 2) Pause a moment, then just give my callsign once or twice and give the DX station a chance to get it right, then give
> me the exchange.
> 
> 3) Assume he really did answer K1KS instead of me and wait for that QSO to finish.   
> 
> 4) Knowing that K1KS is active and might be in the pileup, try to "steal" the QSO by giving the report and my callsign.
> 
> While my advice is to do #2, I usually do #1 and get into the same trap as others if the DX station doesn't acknowledge
> the my callsign.

I do both #1 and #2 at different times and I'm not even 
sure why I choose differently one time over another.  A 
real problem with #1 is that some responding stations will 
repeat their callsign even though there's no reason to do 
so (i.e., the running station has copied the call 
correctly).  This not uncommon practice may serve to 
desensitize the running station to the fact that there's a 
problem with the way he has copied the call.

If I use #1 and the running station fails to acknowledge
the correction, I'm always left wishing I hadn't done it
that way.  I suppose what I'm doing when I choose #1
is that I'm making a judgement (and obviously not always
a correct one) about the quality of the operator or
operation.

Bill/NG3K


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