[CQ-Contest] Secrets of Contesting, Chapter 14

[Hanlon, Steve]

>Jumping into a pileup when you don't know who you're calling is wrong. 

devil's advocate mode on:

what if i believe i have the callsign correct, yet it turns out not to be?  then what happens?  my callsign, KB3KAQ, caused a little confusion during the recent VHF Sweepstakes.  on more than a handful of occassions, stations responding to my SSB CQ would have my call as KA3Q or KA3KQ.  the band conditions were poor and my guess is the stations thought i was repeating my again, when i was mid call sign. again, this happened more than half a dozen times.

does that make the other ops arrogant?  does that make them any less of an operator?  i think it makes them human and if band conditions are poor, these things are to be expected.  of course, had i been working CW, i would not have had this problem, right?

-steve hanlon
KB3KAQ