[CQ-Contest] CQ pattern in contest - what's your vote?

[Ed Parish K1EP]

At 2/25/04 10:58 PM, Kelly Taylor wrote:
>Hi Tonno,
>
>I think the answer is that old standby; it depends.
>
>I think some casual ops aren't really clear on what TEST ES5TV really means,

Exactly, which is why I prefer to start with the obvious, CQ and not TEST.

>but if you're at the start of the contest and things are rockin' you have
>enough activity that even casual guys can figure it out. Often, that level
>of activity itself is a turn-off for casuals, so you probably don't have to
>worry about them too much.
>
>When things slow down, the so-called Sunday doldrums, then you probably have
>to be a bit more sensitive to the casual caller, with more casual-like CQs
>and perhaps even knocking 10 wpm off your code speed. (Speed, I think, is
>the scariest thing for a casual or a newbie.)
>
>As for order, I prefer callsign last: TEST at the beginning sets things up
>for someone tuning in at the beginning, call sign at the end leaves the
>right info for someone tuning in mid-CQ. 

I disagree with that.  As a Low Power S&P single op, I find that if I am tuning in "mid-CQ" and all I hear is the callsign, I become confused.  Is this person trying to bust a pileup?  Is he calling CQ?  Do I answer him?  If I have worked him before, do I stick around to see if it is a pileup?  I am antenna challenged, which is why I do a lot of S&P, so I don't always hear the other side of the Q.  I do agree that you have to adapt to the situation and your rate.  Just in most form of low S/N communications, you need some sort of delimiter.  People complain (and rightly so) that the 599 or 5NN in the exchange is useless, but it serves as a delimiter to tell you that the exchange info (power, serial, state, etc.) now follows.  So, I prefer to hear a CQ like, depending upon rate or preference:

CQ CQ TEST ES5TV ES5TV TEST
or
CQ CQ ES5TV ES5TV TEST
or
CQ ES5TV ES5TV TEST
or
CQ ES5TV TEST

After a QSO, I prefer to hear something like:
TU (or CFM, QSL) ES5TV
or is the rates are really high, just:
ES5TV

One might think that this last exchange is a contradiction.  But since rates are high at that point, it is obvious within a very short period of time who is the run station.  When calling CQ and the rates are not high, which is the reason that you are calling CQ, it is not as obvious.