[CQ-Contest] Rampant Key Clicks in ARRL DX CW 2016

[Barry N1EU]

Instead of the situation improving over the past 15 years with more
awareness, key clicks on the bands during contests have gotten much worse.
I've copied excerpts from score postings from W1UE and N1EU below.

Two groups of contest operators are going to be much more aware of the
problem than others: those who run a lot (and experience the clarity and
usability of their run frequency deteriorate over time) and those equipped
with panadapters.  I also suspect that east coast operators are going to be
impacted more due to stronger European signal levels.

I suspect the situation doesn't bother most contesting folks as much as
me.  I really think it has gotten bad enough to warrant extreme measures -
we've got the tools to monitor/playback spectrum.  Wide signals simply
should NOT be tolerated and operators should be disqualified.

The other measure I'd really like to see is an S&P only category because I,
for one, would like to throw in the towel entirely on running during cw
contests.

73,
Barry N1EU




On Mon, Feb 22, 2016 at 6:54 AM, Dennis Egan <egan.dennis88 at gmail.com>
 wrote:

> Sunday afternoon on 40M was a true click-fest.  I had a good 40M
> frequency, with a rate of about 80.  Gerry W1VE then nestles in 400 cycles
> up, and I started getting key clicks, destroying the frequency for Rx.  I
> slid up to chastise him for the clicks, but when I got on his frequency I
> could still hear the clicks- his station wasn't generating them!  I went up
> another 4 KHz, and the offender was an S5 station occupying about 20KHz of
> spectrum with his key clicks!  His station was only S6- if he could have
> channeled the power expended on his clicks into his signal, he probably
> would have been S9.
>
>
On Sun, Feb 21, 2016 at 8:02 PM, Barry N1EU <barry.n1eu at gmail.com> wrote:

> Lastly, I have to say that I ended the weekend with a bad taste in my
> mouth from the rampant key clicks on the band and the recurring experience
> of having my clear run frequency eventually being over-ridden by key
> clicking neighbors getting too close, over and over and over again. I'm not
> sure if having the P3 panadapter is a good thing or a bad thing, because it
> clearly shows the band filled with wide key clicking signals. It's really
> sad that the ham radio community has never come to grips with this solvable
> issue. It has seriously spoiled cw contesting for me.
>