[CQ-Contest] Wasting Time

[Kelly Taylor]

Hi Al

There are two ways to look at the wasted time argument. The first is  
as you may have: priviliged prima donnas whining. The second, since  
this is the forum for advice on contesting, is as advice.

Most of the complaints have merit: there is no reason to say 'please  
copy', it can save time, in the right circumstances, to NOT send the  
other guy's call, to not, as a CQ station, respond to everybody with  
their own callsigns in phonetics (unless there's good reason (if you  
hear N5KG and K5KG, or KZ5D and K5ZD or two or more similar calls at  
the same time in the pileup).

For those on here that are looking for every bit of advice we can  
offer, if the duscussion is posted as advice, can be quite helpful.  
Particularly since not everybody can hang around until the Sunday  
doldrums hit but want to make maximum impact from whatever time they  
have.

73
Kelly
ve4xt

Sent from my iPhone

On Dec 3, 2010, at 12:56 PM, <al_lorona at agilent.com> 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
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