[CQ-Contest] New Trick?

[David Gilbert]

Maybe this isn't new, but I didn't seem to notice much of it in past 
contests.  Many times during the contest this weekend I heard a 
stateside station break a 40m pileup by transmitting on the DX frequency 
lower in the band.  A few of those were probably honest mistakes ... 
wrong VFO, forgetting to hit the split button, etc ... but it happened 
so often that I'm thinking some folks now employ it as a tactic.  It 
saves the time it would take to spin the knob to go to a new listening 
frequency, of course, but maybe more significantly the violator stands 
out clearly if the DX is using split headphones.  In every single case 
the DX paused as if confused, but then confirmed the contact anyway.  
Possibly some of them deleted the contact afterward, but I doubt it.

Dave  AB7E