[CQ-Contest] How frequent to ID? Every QSO? No way!

[Eric Hilding]

I originally wrote:

 >> Once again, I call on the Contest Sponsors themselves to step up to the
 >> plate and exercise some Leadership in this matter.  One additional sentence
 >> for clarification in the even rules won't place an additional major burden
 >> on ink, toner or paper supplies.

George, K5TR inquired:

 > Are you saying you want a rule that stations must send their callsign
 > at some set number of times?
 >
 > Or would this just be a suggestion of good operating practice?

A fair question.  On January 15, 2005, I had previously suggested:

 > > However, perhaps the contest sponsors themselves are partially to 
blame for failure to spell out what is "expected" behavior?  I
 >> encourage ALL contest sponsors to incorporate a sentence or two 
*WITHIN* the official rules with something to the effect that:
 >>
 >>	"Acceptable contest operating etiquette for DX stations is to ID (send 
your callsign)
 >>	  AT LEAST once every {some number} QSOs during the event."
 >>
 >> Does "education" work?  Failure to even attempt it certainly guarantees 
failure.

Of course, an iron-clad "rule" with "Contest Police" monitoring to enforce 
it with substantial penalties and/or log disqualifications for offenders 
would clean things up real fast.  I'm not really suggesting anything that 
radical at this point, and I guess the terms "behavior" and/or "etiquette" 
can be synonymous with "good operating practice" clarification for starters.

With TRlog, the ability to set a callsign ID to every 3rd QSO (or whatever 
the peer-group acceptable standard should be) is very easy as you 
know...and apparently with the N1MM logger & maybe others as well.

IMHO, the contest event Sponsors don't need the largest Juevos on the 
Planet to help rectify things...just some Leadership...and a clarification 
within the published rules as to what constitutes "Good Sportsmanlike 
Conduct" in this DX operator callsign ID matter.
As contest participants, perhaps the subscribers of CQ-CONTEST can 
collectively formulate a DX station callsign ID standard and recommend this 
to all major event sponsors.

"Time" is an extremely valuable thing in life which can never be replaced, 
whether in a contest or not.  If "education" won't help some of the 
participants be more respectful of the valuable operating time of their 
peers, then it may have to boil down at some future point to help them to 
do so...whether they like it or not, by specific "rules" and appropriate 
penalties.

Since there are penalty flags in football, a penalty box in hockey and 
contest related penalties for busted calls, so such a concept is not 
far-fetched.

73...

Rick, K6VVA