[CQ-Contest] Here's an idea...

[Bob Shohet, KQ2M]

Hi Yuri,

Thank you for your reply and comments.  My participating and sending an unusual name was to do something that would both “liven up” the contest and make it more fun and challenging, especially for ops with a sense of humor and who were up to the “challenge” of copying what was sent not what was already in their memory banks.  My judgment was not whether people were able to copy or not (although I was surely impressed with those who got it right the first time), but rather what they did when they either did not copy it the first time or were not sure what I sent.  Good ops – the ones who wanted to get it “right”, would ask for a repeat and persist until they got it.  That’s what it’s all about - copying what was sent and getting the information correct.
And so you should understand, I didn’t send EEMIO at 40 wpm to someone who was cqing at 15 wpm.  I only made about 30 q’s and I only called highly skilled ops – the very guys who should have been up to the “challenge”.  It was pretty “eye-opening” who got it right, who needed a bunch of repeats, etc.  All in the spirit of good fun.

BTW, this is no different than some of the exchanges I get in some contests from other ops.  Many guys I know intentionally speed up when they come back to me after I call them.  I have heard reports sent to me routinely at 50 – 60 wpm and as high as 70 wpm.  And why not?  I can usually get it and it sure makes it more interesting for me and them – saves time too.  People have also challenged me with unusual and different names in contests – sometimes it takes me a couple of repeats but I don’t give up until I get it.  Cool.  And some of the callsigns?  Dozens that I have worked that I couldn’t even tell what country they were in because the prefix was so unusual and the call was so long (8 or more characters).  I just copy what was sent and the log-checkers will know who it was.  That’s how I feel about it – I realize that not everyone feels the same way.

So to your question.. no – you wouldn’t fail “my” test.  You only “fail” the test if the log-checker determines that you didn’t copy the info correctly – and the penalty is the loss of the qso plus maybe one or two more.  Not a big deal!   

Your examples of policeman and carrier senders are examples or malicious interference – prohibited operating under FCC rules, not to mention affecting potentially hundreds or thousands of stations.  Not the same thing at all.   

But cranking down the power?  You bet!  Happens to me all the time.  Stations testing me at how well I can copy qrp, qrpp, etc.  Often I get an email after the contest from someone telling me how they lowered their power to see if I could copy them.  Sometimes it costs me a few minutes to get a call correct in the contest.  And sometimes I have to give up because I just can’t get it, so I lost a few minutes.  Frustrating?  Yes!  Because I want to work everyone, and as quickly as possible.  Was someone having “sport” at my expense?  Probably.  Does it matter to me?  Not at all.  Just part of the contest.

You ask about why I haven’t been at the KCDXC pile-up competition since 1999?  I absolutely love that “contest”.  I used to stay up in the suite all night long talking with friends, doing the pile-up competition.  It was always one of the highlights of Dayton for me.  You should know that the very first time that I came to Dayton in 1979 when I was 18, I took 3rd place behind N4DW and another guy (don’t remember who it was).  Every year after that when I went to Dayton I always made sure to compete in it.  I loved it regardless of where I finished.  Back to your question....

1998 was my last Dayton.  I started building my station in 1998 before my daughter was born.  I used that the Dayton 1999 weekend to build 6 yagis which are now up on my two towers.  After that I was too busy with my young daughter and my professional work to go back.  So it has been 20 years since I was last at Dayton and the KCDXC pileup competition.  The last 10 years I have not been healthy enough to travel that distance even if I wanted to go.  Three (four?) auto-immune illnesses, several major surgeries and numerous severe ongoing health problems later, I am just happy to be alive and occasionally still operating contests.

As much as I have loved the KCDXC pileup competition and the evening long festivities – some of which I remember ending well after dawn  :-) , it would not be one of my greatest comebacks.  Just surviving and then being able to operate again after each of the past three auto-immune illnesses nearly ended my life, are my greatest comebacks – and hopefully I will not need to make a fourth for a very long time.  

You won’t see me at any future KCDXC pileup competitions and now you know why.  But I will be definitely be there in spirit!

73

Bob  KQ2M


From: Yuri VE3XB 
Sent: Tuesday, March 20, 2018 9:02 PM
To: 'Bob Shohet, KQ2M' ; cq-contest at contesting.com 
Subject: RE: [CQ-Contest] Here's an idea...

Bob,

 

Thanks for the response and sharing your opinion. Very interesting concept indeed.


For the sake of argument I will agree that I was wrong and you, having so many QSOs during your contesting career, are entitled to start judging the skills and abilities of the other people. And this is not arrogance, not at all.

 

Also, I'm on your side regarding actual copying of the exchange during a contest and not just hitting the "Enter" key.

 

But let's go back to the original post where all that started. During NAQP in order to make a valid contact we need to copy call-sign, name and QTH, right? So let's assume that I copied from you: KQ2M, EEMIO and CT. Before logging this QSO, I check what is typed in and I can see your call, your state BUT, being CANADIAN who came from EASTERN EUROPE, I don't recognize any name. So what do I do - I ask for the repeat and therefore failing your "test". Failing not because I miscopied the information you've sent, but because I've never been to Haiti! Kool, isn't it?

 

Due to aging HAM radio population we getting more and more experienced operators who tend to become "On The Air" policemen and judges checking on others. Some, for example, can put kilowatt carrier on DX frequency and they don't mean harm to us, just "testing" our ability to copy weak signals from under the jamming interference. The others crank output power down to milliwatts to check your receiving abilities. All of them don’t care about scores – they just having good time…

 

Back to the Subject.

 

Bob, to test our and your own copying skills why don't you come to Crown Plaza on May 19th after the Contest Dinner for annual Kansas City DX Club Pile-Up competition? There is going to be crowd of great people who came from all over the world, many friends, lots of fun, camaraderie and booze. Everyone is equal - doesn't matter how much $$$ invested in aluminum, equipment and location, whether you are from right or wrong coast - 5 minutes of adrenalin rush and your results are there. You used to attend this contest but for some reason stopped coming in 1999. After ten years it could be one of your greatest comebacks. Hope to see you there.

 

Cheers and 73,

 

Yuri VE3XB

 

 

From: Bob Shohet, KQ2M [mailto:kq2m at kq2m.com] 



 

Yuri, it amazes me that some people make comments before thinking about what they actually write and those same people often make assumptions about what they are writing before having any information.

 

By definition, contests are about testing your skills and the skills of others.  What makes a contest valid is the test of actually COPYING information correctly not just relying on the computer to fill it in for you when you press “enter”. 

 

And because I send with my keyer and not my keyboard, whatever I send, I have to send myself correctly at whatever speed I am sending it.  You can be sure that tests my skill plenty – and after 900,000+ CONTEST qso’s, about 600,000 of which were made on cw, the last time that I checked, I was still doing pretty well in the skill category.   So NO, it is not like “QRP ops..... “yada, yada, yada”.  I am actually sending exchanges, NOT my computer and .

you might do well to ask next time before you assume.  There are few people alive who have made as many CW qso’s as I have and probably no one has ever made as many cw qso’s as me by sending with their keyer rather than their keyboard/computer.

 

I am sure that the Haitian man named Eemio that I knew would take issue with your characterization of “this kind of joke”.  There are MANY names which are unfamiliar to most Americans/Canadians/Eastern Europeans, etc., I certainly don’t think that choosing to use an actual name is a joke - either to send or receive.  Waste of “valuable” time?  Hardly!  If you know what the exchange is before it is even sent then what is actually being tested?   Certainly not COPYING skill; the only thing being “tested” is having enough coordination to use the keyboard/computer to log for you.

 

I would never begrudge anyone sending me an unusual name or a name that I didn’t expect, any more than I would begrudge an operator from using qrp or qrpp.  Actually, many lower power guys call me because they know that I will listen for them and take the time and make the effort to dig them out – many stations won’t do that.  I certainly don’t complain about it or make the statement that you did:  

 

“if you weren't expecting this kind of joke during contest rush. It just waste of valuable time, nothing more”. 

 

You might want to reconsider that  – it sounds pretty arrogant.

 

I thinks it’s nice that low power guys or people with unusual callsigns would call me even though the burden falls on me (and others) to get their callsign and information correctly through the contest levels of qrm, qrn, and qsb.  I appreciate that they are in the contest and raising the level of activity for all participants.  And copying 599TT1 or 59950MW is a lot more interesting than 599KW.  Same with working TG0FRACAP or any of hundreds of unusual and never before heard callsigns that we are not expecting.

 

I get that some people don’t like to be “challenged” by something unusual.  Yeah, it isn’t easy and slows down the rate.  And some people don’t have a sense of humor about some things, and aren’t very tolerant or forgiving.  But really, this is only a contest.  It isn’t about truly important stuff like a person’s health or safety or family.   Life’s too short to argue about contest exchanges.  

 

73

 

Bob KQ2M

 

 

From: Yuri VE3XB 

Sent: Sunday, March 18, 2018 11:07 PM

To: cq-contest at contesting.com 

Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] Here's an idea...

 

Always amazes me. 

Some smart guy comes up with "brilliant" idea and he starts testing everyone else skills but not his own... It's like QRP ops keep complaining about  big gun stations that couldn't copy their tiny signals but never call weak stations themselves. 

As a member of QRQ club I can copy CW at 40 wpm and higher speeds but I would definitely make sure that I copied EEMIO right and will ask for the repeat. Nothing wrong with that, especially if you weren't expecting this kind of joke during contest rush. It just waste of valuable time, nothing more. On the other hand if I had nothing better to do I would come back with some fancy name (like Enine, my old friend's name, for example) and see how well the joker will copy it. Not sure he will.

I guess that most people care about how to get contest exchange copying easier for their party, but looks like some think otherwise, having fun at someone else expense...


73 Yuri VE3XB

-----Original Message-----
From: CQ-Contest [mailto:cq-contest-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of Bob Shohet, KQ2M

A lot time ago in the CW Sprint, I used EEMIO (sent at 40+ wpm of course  :-) and Scandalla amongst other names.  EEMIO was pretty funny – almost impossible to copy correctly at that speed – it was a true test of operator skill and honesty.  Skill to get it right the first time and honesty to ask again for it when they weren’t sure that they got it right.  As you would expect, the best ops got it right on the first or second try, most of the rest either needing MANY repeats (clearly expecting Bob) or just faking it and sending “r’” or “tu”.  I used other unusual names as well to “test” the ops.  I was more interested in having fun with that than achieving a good score.

Once in the mid-80’s, on the way back home after a YCCC meeting in Mass., I operated for an hour at Hal, W1NN’s station in CT, and worked K8CC on two bands with two different names.  When I got back to eastern Long Island in NY (where I was living at the time), I then worked K8CC again on a 3rd band using a different name from another state.  So I worked Dave a total of three times - from two different states on three bands and with three different names (one name per band).

Dave being the FB op that he is, correctly copied each name change and state change.  I’m pretty sure that Dave still remembers that contest.   :-)

73

Bob KQ2M