[CQ-Contest] Should contest ops QRS?

[Jeff Blaine]

I don't understand this topic I guess...

As the RUN station, you set the run speed based on whatever your contest 
goals are.  Normally that's rate vs. your judgement of the conditions 
balanced by your skill because a high score is the objective.  Maybe 
it's more about optimal speed based on comfort and max fun is the goal.  
Whatever; as the run station, you make those choices.

As the S&P station, you need to be able to copy the sending speed of the 
run station, at least well enough to identify your call and the 
exchange.  Speed as well as conditions factor in of course.  But if you 
can't them well enough, either due to speed or QSB or other factors, 
then you should move to another station.  As the S&P station, this is 
your choice.

Now as the S&P station, let's say you got the run station call off a 
spot, meaning you did not have to copy the call personally initially.  
And let's say the contest is one where the exchange is complex (like 
SS).  If the guy is sending too fast for your to copy the exchange, but 
you really really want to get him in the log, then maybe you can try to 
reply back to him at a slower speed and maybe he will QRS for that one 
QSO.  I will typically do this when I'm the CW run station.  But don't 
feel the run station is obligated to slow down - and don't be frustrated 
if he does not.

I always was taught that if your contest performance was lacking, then 
it's up to me to take positive action to improve my end of the QSO.  
Maybe that's working on my max speed.  Or maybe it's a better RX 
antennas for the low bands.  Or optimizing strategy (e.g. let's try 
again later when the QSB may be better).  In short, to control the 
things I can personally control, and treat the rest of the circumstances 
as "given."  Normally the view that "I wish they would change their 
behavior to better suite me" is really inviting frustration and that's 
just something I don't need more of.

But maybe that's antiquated thinking in the modern age and I'm wrong.  
Every day I feel more and more out of touch with many current 
viewpoints.  :)

73/jeff/ac0c
alpha-charlie-zero-charlie
www.ac0c.com

On 2/10/2026 9:48 PM, Lee Hiers wrote:
> Oh my....I wish I had the log from that one!
>
> 73 de Lee, AA4GA/VP2EZ
>
> On Tue, Feb 10, 2026 at 8:23 PM Art Boyars <artboyars at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Ah, yes... VP2E.  A 'fone contest. Saturday night.  I was at a certain
>> Multi-Multi station (who will divulge their identity if they wish).  Things
>> were a little slow.  VP2E was running on some band.  I wrote up a list for
>> QTL ("Send me the list of all the op's at your M-M station").  But I did
>> not include only the op's at the M-M -- I wrote down calls of people I knew
>> who would not be in the contest, about twenty calls altogether.
>>
>> The station proprietor and I sat down together to work VP2E, with the
>> microphone between us, alternating as we ran down the list of calls.  After
>> eight or ten eight-second QSOs the VP2E op asked "Are they really all
>> there?"  The proprietor and I started laughing, but kept going.  We got to
>> laughing so hard that some W7 squeezed in a QSO.  We laughed even harder.
>>
>> We finished the list, and VP2E went back to their ho-hum 300 QSO/hr.
>>
>> Within the rules?  Not then, and maybe even less so now.  Legal?  How can
>> you ask such a question?  Fun?  Absolutely!  Harmless?  Probably (I hope),
>> otherwise we wouldn't have done it.
>>
>> Forty-five years later, would I do it again?  Of course not!  Unless I was
>> looking for a laugh.   :>)
>>
>> 73, Art K3KU
>>
>> On Tue, Feb 10, 2026 at 2:21 PM Lee Hiers <lee.hiers at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> VP2E in 1981...phone contest, but still.  We were running a bit north of
>>> 300 Qs/Hr. and a guy came on and drawled "If you'd talk slower you'd work
>>> more people".  He said it a couple of times and in the meantime, we
>> worked
>>> several folks under him.  I'm pretty certain he was being serious and not
>>> yanking our chain....
>>>
>>> 73 de Lee, AA4GA
>>>
>>>
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