[CQ-Contest] FT contest logging ISSUES

[ktfrog007 at aol.com]

Hi,

I've been following the FT contest high NIL rate discussion.  It affects me as I've never done an FT contest with less than a 5% error rate compared to a more normal 1-2% rate in CW, SSB and RTTY contests.  In my first FT8 contest, the 2018 FT8-Roundup, I had a 9.4% score reduction.


I took part in the recent FT4-DX-CONTEST partly to take a look at the problem.  Some thoughts:

Consider my usual plight as a mostly S&P contestant.  At the end of a QSO with a running station, I send an RR73 transmission. 
WX6XXX AB1J RR73 

After that, I don't want any dead air time. 

I want the runner to immediately send something to someone.  It can be a 73 to me, a new CQ or a reply to a tail ending station (calling off frequency, hopefully).  It's his or her transmission frame.  Use it.

WX6XXX AB1J RR73AB1J WX6XXX 73    or    CQ RU WX6XXX CM87    or    TU; WX6YYY WX6XXX R 599 CA

What I don't want is for the station to disappear for a while.

In the FT4 contest, the running station often disappeared for one or more cycles, so I didn't know what was happening after my QSO.  If I saw an immediate transmission, all was well.  If signals were good and there was no QRM, I assumed all was well.  Otherwise, who knows?

What I want is what happens normally with the legacy modes, CW, SSB, RTTY.  With those modes the running station doesn't disappear between QSOs or get out of the flow.  His continuous ongoing operation is confirmation that my QSO was good; otherwise he'd ask for a repeat.  He should  never go silent.  If he does, something went wrong (power failure) or he's stuck in an SO2R quagmire. (That's the reason folks hate to wait for a slow SO2R station - what happened?)

FT logging should not be done automatically.  Set WSJT-X to prompt logging, but manually click to log the contact when the QSO is satisfactorily completed.  This will prevent logging a contact prematurely or logging it multiple times (one for every RR73) when repeats happen.

There are lots of new FT contesters who don't know the legacy mode contest conventions, such as implied good QSOs if no one raises any issues during the QSO (no repeat requests) and the running station continues on his merry way.  They will need to learn the convention and realize they don't need a final 73 if some other transmission is sufficient.

73,Ken, AB1J.