Topband: Tailending

[Tom Rauch]

Larry and all,

The real problem is people who CAN'T actually hear the DX station calling,
not slipping a single call in at the REAL finish of a contact.

I think the length of a call is directly proportional to how little the
caller actually hears.

If a person wants to make a DX contact, it only makes sense they at least
have to HEAR enough of the DX station to at least know when the DX station
is transmitting, and at least be able to pick letter and numbers out of the
callsign. It is the callers who cannot do this minimal amount, and still
insist on calling, who really are the real problem.

These aren't the location or noise challenged fellows with DXCC's around 100
either. These are often people well up near the top of DXCC Who's who lists.

As a specific example I worked or spotted a rare Asian (for the eastern half
of the USA anyway) and a loud VK started trying to work him. A big gun
called in exact time to the VK's turn overs to the Asian, and prevented the
VK from making his QSO.

The most telling part of this is the VK never even used the Asian's
callsign, and the station pretending he was working the Asian wound up
giving something like a 449 or 459 report to the VK (who was asking him to
shut up) thinking it was the Asian.

Like Bill W4ZV says, this is actually pretty common operating for some
people.

When I look at lists of DXCC rankings, I have to grin thinking about how
they might be if the ghost QSO's were deleted. That why we should never
build our value on how we compare to others, or how they compare to us. That
why I stay off silly lists or awards like WAZ, DXCC, and even the so called
first WAC of the year (I'd bet a few dozen people could work WAC in July
from NA, so who really cares about fall?).

IMO, all these public lists that rank people against each other breed 99% of
the bad behavior.

73, Tom W8JI