[TowerTalk] Participating in a contest for the sake of dx?

[Ray Day]

Original message:

***** ************** ****************

Message: 7

Date: Tue, 9 Feb 2016 17:58:54 -0800

From: Jim Brown <jim at audiosystemsgroup.com>

To: towertalk at contesting.com

Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Participating in a contest for the sake of

               dx?

Message-ID: <56BA995E.4050604 at audiosystemsgroup.com>

Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed

 

On Tue,2/9/2016 4:55 PM, dw wrote:

> But I'm not sure how the contest people would feel about that?

 

As a rabid contester, I can tell you that contesters will welcome your 

QSO IF, and ONLY IF, you play by contesting rules. Here's a quick summary.

 

1) Read the rules of whatever contest you want to operate. From the 

rules, make sure you know the exchange that YOU send, and who can work 

you for credit (that is, he gets credit for working you, whether you can 

work him on only one band or on multiple bands.

 

2) On CW, use a contest logger or programmable keyer with memories. 

Program that keyer or program with

 

Your call sent once

Your exchange to him

 

3) Work fast -- don't waste his time. Send NOTHING extra.

 

4) Call him by sending your call once, pause a second or so to listen, 

call again once if he hasn't come back to someone.

 

5) Don't send your exchange until he sends you his and you have copied 

it. Send it ONCE. If he wants a repeat, he'll ask for it. If you missed 

part of his exchange, ask for a repeat by sending something like "NR?" 

or "Zone?" or "NAME?" Ask for the repeat BEFORE sending your exchange -- 

sending your exchange TELLS him that you copied his OK.

 

6) Send NOTHING extra. No "thanks," or "73" or "good luck in the 

contest." He will acknowledge your exchange by "TU" or "CFM" and then 

his call, which tells other callers he's ready for them.

 

7) Use the same techniques on phone. Speak your call quickly, plainly 

with careful enunciation, using STANDARD phonetics. Nothing cute.

 

8) NEVER use "please copy," "73," "good luck in the contest," or other 

time wasters -- they are "lid-isms."

 

9) Never send anything he's already copied. If he's copied your call, 

never send it again. Send your call again ONLY if he got it wrong. If he 

got your number but not your state, send only your state again. And so on.

 

If you're going to operate much in contests, download and learn to use a 

good contest logger. N1MM Plus is free, and well supported. You'll need 

to study it to learn how to set it up and use it. It's well worth the 

time and effort. Among other things, it can generate an ADI file that 

you can certify and send to LOTW, or import into your general logger 

(like DXKeeper, also free and excellent).

 

The reason for using a programmable keyer is so that you don't waste his 

time with mistakes from hand-sent keying. And you can send pretty fast. 

:) Most modern rigs have enough memories to load the few things you need.

 

73, Jim K9YC

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RESPONSE:

 

Jim,

 

Don't get me wrong, I really like you (having met you personally at Visalia,
etc.) and REALLY like all you have contributed to our beloved hobby, and
with due respect:

 

Consider my two cents worth: Just as nobody owns a frequency, I personally
don't think a contest works in practice like a "directed net," where
participants agree (or should agree) in advance to go by the rules of the
net. 

 

I thank heaven that more guys in a contest as "casual contesters" or even
"just plain casual operators" do submit logs, but I suspect that a lot of
folks just get in to participate in ham radio for the fun of it as well as
giving points to the contesters. I'd love to see how many calls show up in
the Big Gun (or anybody's) logs where they only show up 2 or 3 or a few more
times in all logs and did not submit a log to the organizer. I'm grateful
for them. 2 or 3 (or whatever small number) entries across all submitted
logs should qualify them to the organizers as not being genuinely unique,
and certainly not "falsely generated" to pad a log, especially if the times
and serial numbers are consistent with an actual station calling the log
submitters.

 

In my conversations with these guys, if they had to do it "our way" (the way
of "rabid contesters," as you say) the fun for them would be out of it and
they would not participate. Our loss. While it's a great idea to educate
them to see how to more effectively "give out points," demanding them to
conform to our "best practices" or don't participate might not be in our
best interest. More than once, I've thought, "Thank you Bubba, bless your
little pea-pickin' heart!" as some non-contester has called in to me while
running and slowed me down, such as calling me with a "3x3." Yes, I pound
the operating table in frustration at the time, but at the end of the day,
I'm glad they're there. I'm guessing that most/all of us "contesters" didn't
get into ham radio thinking, "I wanna do this so I can contest!" Hopefully,
they'll "get it," see what works, and adapt to what they see works for
others. And hopefully they can ease themselves into getting closer to the
ways of "rabid contesters." Or not. Their choice.

 

In CW contests, my "sweet spot" is about 28-30 WPM. That's who I am (now).
I'd hope that the 35+ WPM folk don't curse me when I go slower than they do
and slow them down.

 

I have given a talk to the local club on "The Joys of Contesting" to help
spread the best practices in contesting, and it was welcomed. I think that
as "contesters," we'd want to welcome our fellow hams to "ease in" to our
beloved facet of ham radio.

 

BTW, I personally consider myself a "rabid contester," too, but that's a
measure of my enthusiasm, not my skill set and certainly my ability to score
near the top. Maybe that disqualifies me as a "rabid contester." With only
wire antennas, I won't ever win anything unless I game the system to be the
only entry is an award category (oops - which I have done a couple of
times). Frankly, when I'm contesting, I'm like a dog sticking his head out
of a car window: I don't care where I'm going, or if I'm going super fast
(although faster is better), or if other dogs' cars are going faster than I
am. I'm having a blast! 

 

Thanks for listening, and I look forward to working you again (you're in my
log dozens of times on all contest bands, and on CW, SSB, and RTTY). And
thanks again for all your continuing contributions to ham radio!

 

73,

Ray N6HE