[CQ-Contest] An Observation

[Zack Widup]

On Mon, 31 Oct 2005 ALANNOTTAGE at aol.com wrote:

> In a message dated 31/10/05 12:17:47 GMT Standard Time, from 
> cq-contest at contesting.com, Steve, ZC4LI, from hodgson at cytanet.com.cy writes:
> 
> 
> > Gentlemen, it came to my notice during the CQWW SSB Contest that it would 
> > be a whole lot easier and quicker if everyone used the correct phonetic 
> > alphabet and dropped the ''Guatamalas,Londons and Japans''
> 
> Roger that Steve :>)
> 
> Al G0XBV

Aww ... what fun are you?

(Just kidding) - I can see that in international contests nonstandard 
phonetics can be a problem.  But I've had a lot of fun with them on Field 
Day (which isn't really a contest, anyway - or is it?)

One year we used the call W9DE in the group I was in.  His name happened 
to be Ernie, so we used "Whiskey Nine Dirty Ernie" which got copied by 
some people as "Dirty Birdie" for some reason. In another year the same 
club used "Whiskey Nine Old Fat Rat" for W9OFR, and that one seemed to go 
through just fine to everyone.

For my own call I've sometimes used Stuck Zipper, Striped Zebra, Silicon 
Zener, and a few others.  Sometimes those get through when Sierra Zulu 
doesn't.

But mostly I work CW where I don't need phonetics.

73, Zack W9SillyZack