[CQ-Contest] Wasting Time

[Yuri]

This whole debate reminds me of the "motorist-pedestrian" argument.
Who is more important?
I bet if you were a "big gun" you would think a very different way!
So, I guess it is always better to try to be in both party's shoes.

73 Yuri VE3DZ


>>
> On Fri, Dec 3, 2010 at 1:56 PM, <al_lorona at ...> wrote:
>
>> As a little pistol I must admit that a lot of what I read here can be
>> intimidating. For instance, for years I have read the opinion that goes 
>> like
>> this: such-and-such behavior wastes valuable time in a contest. The 
>> behavior
>> in question is usually saying "Please copy...", or sending the other
>> station's call sign before sending your own exchange, or any number of
>> things that irk contesters who have little patience for such "wasteful"
>> practices.
>>
>> Most of these statements are highly ironic. To see why, tune in to the 
>> last
>> few hours of any contest, when stations can go several minutes on a
>> frequency calling CQ without an answer but keep pushing the button 
>> anyway.
>> I'm in no way begruding their right to call CQ;  I'm saying that if you 
>> add
>> up all of the precious seconds "wasted" by those of us that say "please" 
>> or
>> "QSL" or whatever, that "wasted" time doesn't even come close to the time
>> you spend sitting on a quiet frequency looking for those last few 
>> contacts.
>>
>> In other words, most stations are not time-limited in most contests, they
>> are 'finding-another-Q' limited.
>>
>> You may argue that it is worse to lose seconds in the first hours of the
>> contest when rates are higher, than in the last hours when rates drop. 
>> This
>> argument may have merit, but remember that presumably everybody is being
>> impacted more or less equally by the "wasters" and so all this does is
>> change the point of peak rate (as well as the peak rate itself) for each
>> participant. To me this is little different than everybody being affected 
>> by
>> a solar flare. You may argue that if your goal is to set a new world 
>> record
>> then any deviation from your precise idea of the perfect exchange has a
>> greater negative impact and there I might agree with you, unless you find
>> yourself pushing the button a lot at the end... in which case, maybe most
>> contests are too long?
>>
>> I submit that most of the "wasted seconds" arguments are moot and belong 
>> on
>> the Aargh! wiki page.
>>
>> Al  W6LX