[CQ-Contest] Is this frequency in use?

[Tree]

Interesting 24 hours on this "frequency".

Again - I am sorry I wasn't able to answer K3KU right away.  It certainly
was my intent.  All
of this discussion about not hearing anything for 7 or 8 seconds is
certainly an interesting
debate - but not really relevant to what happened.  K3KU heard something -
or he wouldn't have
called me.  I was being a lid and not getting back to him due to my fat
fingers and it took me
more than a couple of beats to get back to him (I think I doubled with him
once). K3KU
probably had a few other cases of delays happening and wasn't feeling very
happy about having
to wait and escalated the situation.  This kind of thing happens during a
contest all the time.
Honestly - I didn't even remember who I had gotten into this scuffle with
after the contest.
When I saw the posting on cq-contest - I figured I should do the "right"
thing and confess
(good for the soul).

One other thought I wanted to share - is that it is a f***knig contest
guys.  It's a competitive
event. Many people are just there to have fun and hand out QSOs - and I
understand that - but
for many of us - it is (as N8XX called it) "blood and guts".  QRM is going
to happen.  There
will be small scuffles about frequency ownership.  People slide up and down
to try to improve
their frequency by causing some QRM to the guy next to them to see what
happens.  It's not
much different than a Nascar race.  If this isn't something you are okay
with - then perhaps
you should operated the contest on your own terms up the band a little
where there is less
of this kind of thing going on.

I had a case that is interesting to think about.  On 40 meters, I heard a
CO2 calling CQ
TEST which I needed for a multiplier.  He was on like 7036 kHz.  I called
him a few times
and he kept CQing in my face.  It was interesting that nobody else seemed
to be calling
him either (he had a pretty good signal).  After some time - he just
disappeared.  I decided to
steal his frequency and "tested" it by calling some CQs.  There was no
objection (well - it
seemed he couldn't hear me anyway) - and I started working guys.  About 10
minutes later -
the CO2 showed up again - and started CQing again - and not hearing my
call.  I moved the
dial and went up the band.  The interesting thing to think about - is how
would I have
responded to this situation if a different station had done this?  They
might not have heard me
at all and assumed the frequency was clear.  In this case - it would have
been decided by who
could keep their rate going and "make enough noise" for the other station
to realize there
might have been somebody there that they didn't hear.  I think this points
out that a "time
element" is important.  If you have only been on a frequency for 30 or 40
seconds - even
though you have made a couple of QSOs - if you find someone else on that
frequency now,
the statistics are not in your favor.  Chances are - they were there before
you and the
"nice" thing to do is to leave.  Frequency "ownership" isn't a digital
thing.  Being there for
20 minutes is very different than being there for one minute.

Another case is when I heard a rare station on 15 meters...  I just heard
him send his call
twice...  well - that was enough for me and I started calling him
"aggressively".  Turns out,
he was trying to work my buddy N5RZ who had to finally say "N6TR QRL" for
me to realize
I needed to shut up.  N5RZ and I are still friends.

In the NAQP - in order to be competitive - you are going to need to use two
radios so you can
search and pounce on one band while "owning" a frequency on another.  This
technique typically
results in 200 or more QSOs being made.  I think anytime you take the time
to answer someone's
CQ - it is a "Good Thing" for the contest - so the more of this there is
the better.  True - this will
create occasional momentary delays on the run frequency - but the average
NAQP QSO takes
about 3 or 4 seconds - so it really shouldn't be an issue from a "making
enough noise to maintain
ownership of the frequency" perspective.  It's only when someone decides
this "nonsense" and
goes out of their way to express their opinion in the heat of battle where
I see this would be an
issue.

Again - if things has been working normally - I believe K3KU would have
been in my log without
any of this emotion coming to light.  This delay could have happened
regardless of whether or
not I was making a QSO on the second radio.  K3KU didn't respond to my
attempt to make a
real QSO - or seemed interested in hearing my explanation on the air - so I
don't even have a
record of when this occurred - just my memory.

I did find one comment that was made a little strange.  When someone says
"I don't call 911",
I think that means that they take care of situations on their own.  I
believe this is a term
typically used by gun owners?  I hope it was intended differently than I
had assumed.
Sometimes, we jump to wrong assumptions about things and get a little
carried away.

73 Tree N6TR