[CQ-Contest] QSO B4

[Kenneth E. Harker]

     My copy of the September/October 2003 National Contest Journal arrived
yesterday (if you aren't already subscribed to this publication, you should
be!) and a comment in W9VA's article "ARRL CW DX Contest 2003 from 
Fernando de Noronha" touched on one of my pet peeves.

     Bill describes a moment on Sunday morning when a packet spot was sent
out with his run frequency, but spotting the call A35RK, resulting in having 
to send "five or six" QSO B4 messages before the pileup subsided.  According
to Bill, these were stations who "should know better" because they were not
"bothering to listen for [his] callsign."

     I have no idea wheter PY0FF was signing every QSO, every-other QSO, or 
what during that portion of the contest.  But, one of my personal pet peeves
is stations (usually DX) who sign very infrequently and then get indignant 
when you dupe them.  Let's say that I tune across a station running stateside
station in the ARRL DX Contest.  Once he makes two or three QSOs without 
giving a callsign, I'm faced with the following dilemma.  I could wait until
he signs (will it be 120 seconds? 180 seconds? who knows?) and risk possibly
missing it in QRM or static crashes or QSB, or I could call him and know for
certain in 15 seconds whether I need him (by asking for his callsign) or 
he's a dupe (because he says QSO B4 or somesuch.)  If I call him and don't 
get through, I'm no worse off than I was to sit there and listen.

      So, when I do the calculations in my head, it seems to me that it is 
clearly in my best interest to just call an infrequently signing station,
running the risk of an indignant QSO B4 or being thought of as someone
who "should know better" than to sit there and wait.  If a contest station is 
signing infrequently, it is assuming that S&P stations will be willing to
waste their time in order for the run station to save a second or two 
here or there.  When that gamble fails, getting indignant about it seems to 
me to be the really rude side of the QSO, not the other way around.

     For all I know, PY0FF was signing every QSO, in which case the packet
callers were clearly lids, but all too often with DX stations, it is the 
infrequent sending of callsign that is to blame.

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Kenneth E. Harker      "Vox Clamantis in Deserto"      kharker at cs.utexas.edu
University of Texas at Austin                   Amateur Radio Callsign: WM5R
Department of the Computer Sciences          Central Texas DX & Contest Club
Taylor Hall TAY 2.124                         Maintainer of Linux on Laptops
Austin, TX 78712-1188 USA            http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/kharker/
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