[CQ-Contest] The mess I stirred up!

[Geoffrey Way]

I would put things in this context:

A running station "occupies" the frequency, and "holds" on to its use until 
one of two things occurs--

They "default" from it by failing to safeuguard against its occupancy by 
another operator for any of a myriad of reasons: failure to respond in 
timely fashion to queries if it is in use, equipment malfunction/failure, 
loss of propagation, house has caught fire, family emergency, etc.

-or-

They willingly RELINQUISH it.

The scenario which gave rise to this robust discussion argues over what 
defines the "default", or if it was or wasn't one. In Tree's case, there 
was a most regrettable equipment problem which he tried his best to resolve 
in the shortest possible time based on his judgment of the conditions of 
the moment on the run frequency and what was attainable with his equipment.

 From each of us, there may be a spectrum of viewpoints, and many of them 
are valid, given what each individual experience has been. We see our 
truths based on what we know and have learned.

If K3KU were feeling philanthropic, perhaps he'd relinquish, and say "Tree, 
you OWE me one."

If he were feeling hardcore competitive, he'd make Tree pay, and not 
respond to him under the notion that Tree had defaulted through his 
technical lock-up. He would begin running anyone EXCEPT Tree for the next 
few Q's to assert that he now "occupies" the frequency, and that N6TR has 
lost it out of default by his technical hang-up.

Such is the field of competition, and radio contesting. If our practices 
and methods are truly unfair, selfish, or intentionally counterproductive, 
we might end up getting very few answers to our CQ's. If they are 
considerate and generous, let the pileups be deep.

I had an occurrence of a different sort on this same situation. A south 
american was running, and when I answered, his report cut out mid-sentence. 
So I gave it a few seconds, and gave my report, adding his signal had cut 
out, please repeat.

...Silence.

I repeated, and still silence. I sent his call followed by mine as to re- 
establish a QSO, and nothing.

So I set about running, and worked for about 8 minutes and eventually the 
south american answered my CQ. I told him I was glad to hear him back OK, 
and that I'd kept the frequency for him, he was welcome to resume with it. 
But apparently he wasn't too strong with English, and I barely know much 
more than "Gracias" and "Por Favor" of Spanish. I think in the end neither 
of us stayed, we both walked away from it. I know I left it before he did. 
It wasn't long before I was running elsewhere on another band.

-- KA1IOR

  "Style is a simple way of saying complicated things."  --J. Cocteau


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            \  |    |   ---Tao.   A chinese character that
            -- |----|                means "Way, Path."
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             \ |____|
             /_________                  Geoffrey Way

      websites: http://www.cape-vision.com/wayg/mrep
                http://www.cape-vision.com/wayg/ka1ior