[RTTY] Upside-down RTTY contest QSO's

[Phil Cooper]

Hi all,

I know I was suffering from a bad cold, and also had lots of other things on
my mind at the time, but I too noticed a lot of "odd" behaviour during the
contest.

Not only did I get more than a few who sent a report before just calling me,
but some sent a report, got my report to another station entirely, and then
sent me a 73 as acknowledgement!

I also noticed these lapses of judgement - and some from what I would term
as experienced RTTY contesters!
1. Asking for a repeat, which I sent, but they were CQ'ing once I had
finished sending. So was that a good QSO?

2. Just turning up and calling CQ over an existing QSO.

3. Sending an exchange with no calls attached when there are several
callers. Happened to me on a few occasions, resulting in repeat requests.

4. Calling me a second time is fine, as I may not be a dupe for you, but
calling me 5 or 6 times during the contest (same band). Really?

5. Very slow in responding. Even if you have to type my call into the box,
surely it doesn't take 1-+ seconds before you respond to me? Maybe these
were SO2R/V ops, in which case, you probably aren't doing it right. Some
were so slow that I sent my call again, which blotted out their - eventual -
response.

6. READ THE RULES... Mults count only ONCE, so why join a pile of callers to
grab me, when we have already worked on another band?

7. Calling me with a 2 X 3 callsigns.  Totally unnecessary.

8. When I ask for a repeat, I need the serial number, not your call, or the
599 (often sent twice!), and nor your State or name. JUST THE SERIAL NUMBER
PLEASE!

It's difficult to know with the WPX RTTY contest, as there are so many
inventive callsigns in this one, but I would hazard a guess that many of the
folk doing the above were newcomers to the dark art of RTTY contesting. For
me, many were calls that didn't come up in the SCP file, and many also could
not get my call right. I ended up with a macro that said PSE CORRECT MY CALL
- GU0SUP - GUERNSEY ISLAND. I'm still not sure some got it.

I know I made some errors, which I blame on feeling lousy, and my
inexperience with N1MM+. I am getting better at running, but I still forgot
to hit ENTER, and pressed F2 instead. I don't think these few occasions
caused any problems, but it wasn't good for me.

73 all

Phil GU0SUP


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