[RTTY] BARTG sprint

[John Barber]

Jerry,
Back in 1997 the BARTG contest 'committee' was only me! So I am entirely to blame for the BARTG Sprint contest and the rules.
Bob W9BU echoes my thinking at the time; the RST exchange is 'repetitive, redundant, and sometimes bogus'. It wastes time and is meaningless.
Not only in contests either. When did you get anything other than 599 from a DXpedition?
At the time all the other RTTY contests had the RST as part of the exchange, so any departure from this had to be carefully considered. The 'well understood requirements' for RST are actually just another myth.
The ARRL were asked for their thoughts regarding DXCC and the response was quite clear. QSL cards were accepted as proof of contact between stations at a stated date, time and frequency. The signal report was not a requirement.
So that's how it started. Personally I would dump the 599 from all contests and substitute something meaningful if not already in the exchange. Then try to get a useful report in non-contest QSOs, including power, antennas and real RST. That's not going to happen though!
Cheers,
John GW4SKA/GW0A


-----Original Message-----
From: RTTY [mailto:rtty-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of Jerry Flanders
Sent: 28 January 2018 18:10
To: Keith Maton <g6nhu at me.com>; RTTY Contest Reflector <rtty at contesting.com>
Subject: Re: [RTTY] BARTG sprint

At 12:28 PM 1/28/2018, Keith Maton wrote:
>Does anyone else find it surprising how many people clearly don’t 
>bother to read the rules of the contest they’re entering? I lost 
>count of the number of stations who sent a signal report and they 
>weren’t just casual people giving away a few points, some had many 
>hundreds of QSOs. Conditions were poor yesterday but worse today - I 
>struggled with very weak signals on 20m this morning. 73 Keith G6NHU 
>_______________________________________________
>RTTY mailing list RTTY at contesting.com
>http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/rtty

Actually, I have always thought  the BARTG contest committee didn't read the well-understood requirements that a QSL card needs a RST report to be accepted by all awards committees as a valid QSL. So most of the QSLs resulting could be challenged if some nut wanted to.

I would agree that RST should not be a required part of a QSL, but it appears that it presently is. Maybe BARTG and other contest sponsors should lobby to change that "requirement".

I didn't send an RST, but only a few of my 245 Qs sent RST (I distinctly remember one guy who sent me a 598 - whazzup with that? Screws up the flow to have a non-standard exchange.)

Google "what are the requirements for a QSL card as a radio confirmation of contact?", and the following info pops up. This is from http://www.m0oxo.com/direct-a-bureau-instructions/new-to-qsl-ing-how-to-guide.html
, and is typical of several I read.


"Contents of a QSL Card

There is some information that needs to be on all QSL cards to be valid for the various awards, and also to confirm the contact. This includes both call signs (yours and the station worked), the frequency or band, the mode, date and time, and a signal report. This is highlighted in point 3 below;

1) Callsign; Your Callsign needs to be on both sides of the card. It needs to be big enough to be easily seen by the person who you are sending it to. You may also consider (on the rear), adding several other of your Callsigns in which case you would to have the 'tick-box' option on there (see image below).

2) Your name with Postal and Email addresses (if applicable).

3) QSO information area. This should be large enough for you to write all the data needed to confirm the QSO. Date, Time (UTC), Band, Mode, RST etc etc are all required. ..."

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