[CQ-Contest] Wasting Time

[al_lorona at agilent.com]

Thanks for all of your great comments.

I'll respond, then I'll let y'all have the last word.

I don't remember who it was that gave a very detailed mathematical analysis of what happens to your rate when someone slows you down. Too bad it was ruined by a totally unrealistic initial assumption that this supposed 'time wasting' added TEN SECONDS to a contact. My opening scenario *never* supposed this. The effect on rate by what I'm talking about is much less, isn't it?

I was in the contest this weekend and every time someone did something that ostensibly 'wasted' a second or two, I smiled. Lots of big guns were doing it. Like, once, someone sent '73' to confirm receipt of my exchange. He could have sent 'R' and avoided wasting almost a second of my time! :^)

You know what we need? Contest logging software should report Time Spent on Unproductive CQs. If you saw this calculation for your next contest, maybe then it'd become clearer what I'm talking about.

Thanks again,

Al  W6LX, trying really hard not to waste anyone's time. Come to think of it, if I sat out the next contest completely, I wouldn't waste *any* of it!