[CQ-Contest] Contest CQ format?

[Bill Tippett]

         Rather than worry about saving a few
characters in a CQ or exchange, we might gain
more QSOs by paying attention to:

1.  *Appropriate* sending speeds, realizing not
all potential repliers are hot-shot CW ops.  I'm
often surprised to hear many otherwise well-
qualified ops who never comprehend this.
"Appropriate" depends on the situation and
comes through experience and experimentation.

2.  Using enough RX bandwidth to hear the
off-frequency callers (often +/- 500 Hz or more).

3.  Pausing for callers more than a few milliseconds
before beginning the next CQ.

         Contests are won by operators who
efficiently work the most callers in a given time
period.  IMHO those are not necessarily the
same operators sending cut numbers at
warp speeds.  "Efficiently" above includes
accuracy as well as speed. "Do it right the
first time" is a good phrase from the quality
world that is worth remembering.

                         73,  Bill  W4ZV