[CQ-Contest] Fills and repeats

[Rowland.Archer at gxs.com]

Thanks for the answers so far -- sounds like there is no widely understood code for "send the second digit please!!"  It does seem like it would be really helpful -- of course if conditions are poor, and you send something that is not expected (like  "NR 2" meaning send the second digit), there's a good chance the guy on the receiving end won't hear you well, only adding to the confusion.

One comment that has come up several times is that most people are more comfortable hitting a macro key than using a paddle to send at relatively high speeds.  Count me in that group -- although one skill I've worked on is just hitting Alt-K to bring up a keyboard typing window so I can send arbitrary keystrokes.  I try to set up the macros I need for 95% of my transmissions, but over time it has become second nature to just hit alt-K when I need to send something ad-hoc.  That way I can keep my hands on the keyboard rather than reaching for the paddle, but still send anything I want.  That was helpful this weekend with QTC's -- people would ask for "TIME?" or "CALL?" on a specific QTC, and I could use alt-K just to send the missing part of the exchange.  I was actually amazed at the receiving ability of the EU ops for QTC's - out of 200+ QTC's sent, I bet I only had to send less than 10 repeats, and I was sending them at 25WPM from my modest station.

73,
Rowland K4XD

-----Original Message-----
From: cq-contest-bounces at contesting.com [mailto:cq-contest-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of Rowland.Archer at gxs.com
Sent: Monday, August 11, 2008 11:18 AM
To: cq-contest at contesting.com
Subject: [CQ-Contest] Fills and repeats

Hi folks,

While asking for "nr nr" over and over this weekend on WAE CW, it occurred to me that I didn't know any "standard" practice for asking for the JUST that one digit or letter I'm missing.  Nothing more frustrating than something like this sequence:

You:  K4XD ur 5NN 3<QRN>9
Me:  NR NR?
You:  5NN 3<fade>9, 3<static crash>
Me:  AGN NR?
You:  NR 5NN 3<fade>
Me:   3?9 3?9
You:  ur 5NN 3<crash>9 5NN 3<fade>

You get the picture.  I keep hearing the stuff I don't need, and not hearing that one bit of information I'm lacking.  Only once this weekend did I hear someone try to specify the single digit he was missing -- he sent "NR 3 NR 3?" to indicate he was missing the 3rd digit.

I would think sending 3?9 would indicate "please just send the number between 3 and 9" but it seldom works, people resend the whole sequence most of the time, or send 5NN very slowly just in case I missed that part!  It is frustrating to hear the parts you already know coming through clearly, knowing you would have the missing info if they were sending that instead of what you already copied.

Any advice from the brain trust? (Besides better antennas!)

73,
Rowland K4XD






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