[CQ-Contest] Field Day and please copy

[al_lorona at agilent.com]

I have poked fun at myself for years for using "Please copy" in contests. I know I shouldn't, but I can't help myself. I think it goes back to my hometraining; I can still hear my mother telling me to say "Please," and "Thank you," for practically every social situation.

But really, "Please copy" is so much more friendly, more social, and, more importantly, a more effective attention-getting signal than an abrupt "Thirty-seven alpha Sacramento Valley." What, no "QSL", no "Roger", not even a "Thanks" preceding the exchange? "Please copy" is a very efficient way of saying, "Pick up your pencil and turn on the DSP or whatever you have to do; here comes my exchange. You ready?"

I have resisted the pressure to become less human and more robotic, especially during Field Day when new hams and the public are listening in such greater numbers than during any other time. "Please copy" is my little tiny way of making the scary a little bit less scary.

After September 11, a lot was written in the press about how people had become, at least for the moment, a little bit nicer to each other in the enormity and the shock of what had happened, not only in New York, but everywhere else in the country. People honked their horns just a little bit less, and said "Hello" just a little bit more. In a real real, you know, nationwide emergency, I bet you that hearing an occasional "Please copy" is going to give you a slightly more reassuring feeling as you pass traffic that is largely depressing and terrifying.

You guys sometimes make a mountain out of a molehill!

W6LX said that.


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Tom Hammond NØSS [mailto:n0ss at earthlink.net] 
> Sent: Wednesday, 26 June 2002 9:01 AM
> To: cq-contest at contesting.com
> Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] Field Day and please copy
> 
> 
> 
> >I talked with Georgia ARES/NTS personnel and the phrase 
> "please copy" did
> >not come from them.
> 
> For what little I'm sure it'll be worth... Even though my 
> operation has 
> been 95% CW, I began operating in sectional phone nets in about 1959, 
> though it wasn't until probably 1965 or so that I began 
> hearing "Please 
> copy" used by some operators. By the late '60s it was quite a 
> bit more 
> prominent (at least in the Midwest). I believe it's still 
> seen regularly on 
> a number of phone nets... usually local or sectional, rather 
> than regional 
> or larger.
> 
> Granted, it's not good operating procedure, but it IS 
> something many ops 
> have grown up with and will continue to do so until those who 
> use it stop 
> doing so.
> 
> 73,
> 
> Tom  N0SS 
> 
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