TopBand: CQ 160 m SSB Ethics Summary - Recommendations (long)

[K3BU@aol.com]

This is the summary of responses to TopBand Reflector and to me re: CQ 160 m
SSB Contest ethics. Some of this applies also to 80 and 40 m situations.
Complete replies and my original posting are at KA9FOX home page as listed
here at the end. 

As many of you have observed during the last CQ 160 m SSB contest, "the
envelope" has been pushed further and by more stations than before. Two
biggest problems were: QRMing the DX window and "owning" the frequency for
most or entire contest by some stations. 

On QRMing the DX window: the worst offender was one W2 who transmitted on
1835.7 and with his overmodulated audio was wiping out down to 1832 kHz for
almost entire contest. When I confronted W2 on the air, he didn't see
anything wrong with that. Almost all respondents agreed that DX window was
made useless for rest of them between 1832 and 1835, all except one agree
that it was a violation of contest rules and that offender(s) should be
disqualified, perhaps contacts with station like that be removed from other
participant's logs, and repeat offenders be barred form the participation in
future contest. 
    I looked up exact wording and here is the part of FCC regulations on
emission standards:
     "S 97.307 Emission Standards
b) Emissions resulting from modulation must be confined to the band or
segment available to the control operator. Emissions outside the necessary
bandwidth must not cause splatter or keyclick interference to operations on
adjacent frequencies."
     This means, in case you don't know or forgot, that you can not transmit
LSB on 3750.7 (Extra class US), or USB on 14349.3, and if DX windows is
designated as 1830 - 1835, you can not transmit LSB on 1835.7 (big period). I
don't think it takes a genius to figure this out, or pack of lawyers to twist
it around. Is it so hard to comprehend that THERE IS A SIGNAL, be it carrier
or modulation?  If it is still not clear, perhaps you should call FCC for
clarification.
Consensus is: Rules are ment to be kept, offenders should be punished. It
would be beneficial to have Contest Committe observers to gently remaind
offenders and where appropriate, report to the Contest sponsor and present
recomendation for eventual disqualification.

On hogging the frequency, there is no rule against it in the rules. The
biggest "offenders" were the multis, who can afford to have someone always
sitting on the frequency, even during the daytime. When you consider that
there is limited amount of band that overlaps phone operation among different
countries, some of them with very narrow band, you end up with situation when
few stations basically block the band and while holding on to those
frequencies, they prevent anyone to work DX there. If one tries to "sneak" a
call to station they just worked, he gets blasted off with "it's mine!".
There seems to be less and less tolerance, gentlemen's behaviour and
sportsmanship among some of our fellow contesters. We should remember that
whole world can hear us, that we are trying to solicit contacts and points
from others, and that our operating style is our picture, and that we are
representing our country in the international competition. 
   It is hard to inoculate someone with the above qualities, all we could do
is to appeal, to point out or next time ignore such operator, especially by
you casual contest operators who give out points. Your signal and your
operating is a picture of you, try to paint the nicest one you can. Otherwise
things get ugly and there is little pleasure and fun left for everyone
concerned. Having policemen standing next to the operator is not practical,
nor desired. If someone tells you that your signal is overmodulated or you
have a keyclicks, there is usually reason for it. Check it, correct it and
then continue.
   It would be nice to return to the "old" practice: if you ran out of pileup
on your frequency, then you go S&P and let someone else get on with CQing. It
might be the rare one that you otherwise wouldn't work. There were about 17
"hogs" and 1500 disgusted operators in the last contest, because of frequency
hogging.

There were comments that we should close the SSB contest on 160 - no more.
There are many of those that enjoy only SSB operating. True, 160 with its
band plans is a lot more fun and fewer problems on CW. Personally I prefer CW
contesting, it requires another skill - mastering CW, less QRM from wide
signals and now with computer logging/sending I just love it 10 db more.
Perhaps switching dates for CW and SSB every year would give it some
freshness due to seasonal propagation variations. This could apply to WPX and
WW contests. 160 SSB contest with largest activity is obviously in demand,
let's just keep it, but sane. 

Band plan on 160 accepted worldwide would be a big help. If we had exclusive
segments like for 1800 - 1830 CW only, 1830 - 1840 DX window that could be
used for CW or SSB, 1840 and up CW, SSB and rest of the modes. This bandplan
and frequency allocation should be the subject of the next WARC. (80 and 40
could use some unification too). We have already made a big progress in
bringing more countries with more frequencies to 160. DX window is definitely
an asset for weak signal conditions and small spot where you can look for the
rare and weak ones. Where needed, the split frequency operation would be
beneficial. (You could place your listening frequency on the top of perpetual
CQer and make him move.)

Do we really need multi operator category on a single band? Personally I
prefer contests with off periods like WPX, they tend to equalize the
operating time among various geographical locations, allow for some repairs
without big loss, and it would eliminate hogging the frequency for whole
contest. One night period around the world might be sufficient. 24 hour
contest has faster pace, and is more representative of operator skill, as
oposed to picking up bystanders when things get slow. Contest rules will
hardly be fair to everyone, but it helps to tweak them if situation demands
it. 
We should be looking at sunspot cycles and if there are rule changes needed
to accomodate new conditions, they could be made at the bottom of the cycle,
like we are now. (WPX CW would benefit tremendously from moving it up one
month.) 
Lets cool off, think how we can make this contest better. Dayton would be
good place to hash it out, come up with proposal for changes, have a vote on
it and have a next one - a better 160 contest.
I hope this exercise will help to make our contesting better and wake up some
people who perhaps went too far and made them realize that they are not the
only ones in the contest.
Thank you for your input, comments, suggestions and support. Comments are
summarized in "CQ 160 m SSB comments summary 1 and 2" and can be found on
KA9FOX home page   http://www.qth.com/ka9fox/
or I can email them to you for asking.

73 and CU in the next one!  
Yuri, K3BU, VE3BMV, one of N2EE Tesla Sparks

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