[CQ-Contest] 3 and 4 letter contesting callsigns

[Tim Shoppa]

Often in a near-zero-beat pileup, it's the longest often 2x3 callsign that
gets pulled out. WN4AFP is the perfect example.

I don't understand why 1x1's are so popular in England. There must be some
special licensing rule? Maybe it's like how multi-ops in France end up with
TM calls? I would think a slightly longer "well-known" personal callsign
would win every time over a special call that not's in SCP. I've speculated
in the past at the value of having a "well-known callsign" and would bet
it's 3 to 6dB among the best ops at the other end. Even in WRTC where the
ops are not using SCP of course they have a huge knowledge of the world's
most common calls. Then again... I've also operated at M/M's and had folks
come back to "W6LPL" or "K3LPL" without any bells ringing in their head
that hey maybe it's a well known call instead.

Then there was the world's shortest callsign... EE5E... sent at 50 WPM.
Whoever thought that was good for a contest was nuts. Then again if you're
99% running and SO2R or SO3R and for interleaving purposes you need the
briefest callsigns then maybe it's worth the craziness.

Tim N3QE