Yes....this one current "73 both ways" rule has the Europeans, that are not aware of US based ARRL VHF-UHF contesting rules, confused. 

As I worked the ON4KST chat room during my harvesting of 5  432 EME Qs during contest, I constantly was reminding all in my W4NH CQ solicitations that i "need 73 both ways for valid" .

Ron

From my Samsung Galaxy S4

-------- Original message --------
From: John Kludt <johnnykludt@earthlink.net>
Date: 09/21/2017 1:56 PM (GMT-05:00)
To: Sherman Banks <w4atl@shermanbanks.net>, fourlanders@contesting.com
Subject: Re: [Fourlanders] VHF Contesting and Digital Modes

Sherman,

This is spot on.  I wish he would have addressed the need for both stations to send "73" as I think that is incorrect especailly in a contest.  He repeated the rule several times: you can't go to the next message till you have received the last message in the sequence. 

1. I send "RRR"
2. You send "73"
3. If I got your "73" we are done, if not I resend "RRR":
4. Repeat until I get your "73" in which case we are done.

Or so it seems to me.

Johnny

-----Original Message-----
From: Sherman Banks
Sent: Sep 20, 2017 4:12 PM
To: fourlanders@contesting.com
Subject: [Fourlanders] VHF Contesting and Digital Modes

K5QE has written up a primer on using digital modes in VHF contests and it can be found here.

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/9l5oeiir4inn4x6/Contesting%20and%20Digital%20Modes.doc?dl=0

 

You will learn about “funny little numbers.”