[CQ-Contest] Your Call?

[sbloom at acsalaska.net]

I'm not sure changing the exchange is realistic (though man that *IS* a 
great idea) ...but I will comment that I find it increasingly difficult 
to communicate *anything* other than the contest exchange with most 
folks.  I always try to get guys late in the contest ..if/when things 
are slow ..to QSY to other bands ..and I'm probably down to 1 or 2 in 
10 ...giving me any answer at all ..yes or no ...no matter how much I 
QRS.  Probably not much that can be done ..as code readers become more 
popular ..but it does suck. 
 
73
Steve KL7SB
 

On Thu, 25 Feb 2016 16:09:21 -0500, Jeff Clarke  wrote:

       A simple solution. Make the callsign part of the exchange like 
SS. For example if I work P40W he would send KU8E P40W 5NN 5. 

There were several stations this past weekend in ARRL DX that wouldn't 
even send their call until they weren't being called by anyone anymore. 
Some others would work between 5-10 stations before they sent their 
call. 

I blame alot of this problem on the dumbing down of DX contesting (and 
DXing in general) caused by packet spotting. Most casual DX contesters 
like SOA and just click on packet spots and work people. No skill 
needed anymore to copy a call or have any knowledge about propagation 
to know which band to be on to maximize your score. To me it's similar 
to catching fish in a barrel. Those on the other end of the pileup know 
this and this is why they don't ID frequently. It's very frustrating 
for those who still like to be unassisted. 

It's obvious to me that many of these people also can't copy CW other 
then their own call. I had a situation on 15 CW Sunday morning in ARRL 
CW that I had a bunch of dupes that started calling me. Someone had 
probably spotted my call wrong. It was amazing to me that many of those 
that called were well known contest calls. They still called even 
though I was sending my call every QSO. I checked the spots of my 
callsign after the contest and that's exactly what happened. It wasn't 
until someone spotted me with the comment "call correction" that the 
dupes stopped. 

BTW, I'm not against SOA. I guess I'm just old fashioned because it's 
just not challenging to me. I like to find stations and band openings 
on my own. That's more thrilling to me. To each his own. If you get a 
thrill from clicking on spots all weekend long, more power to you. 

Kudos to guys like K3WW and AA3B who have good stations, are great run 
operators and they know how to interleave spots between their runs to 
maximize their score. 

Jeff KU8E
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