[UK-CONTEST] CW Letters instead of Numbers

[Doug Roberts]

Don,

The saving is probably not as great as might be imagined - several
QSOs-worth of 'saved' seconds will be negated by a single request for a
repeat.  I am not adept at demorsing abbreviated numbers and neither, I
suspect, are many others.  Following the sporting analogies, as there is no
'premiership' in these contests, we're all in the same league and the
serious contester should surely take into account that the bulk of his QSOs
will be with 'mere mortals'?  Skimming through some old contest reports in
QST last week, I noticed comments about the sustained QSO rates of 'steady
plodders' being greater than those of the speed merchants, and I tend to
agree - a clean QSO at 25wpm scores as much, and takes no longer than, a
'dirty' one (including repeats) at 40wpm.  That logic also applies to
'uncommon' abbreviations, speed changes, and anything else that detracts
from the ability of  the 'mere mortal' to successfully (i.e. first time)
decode what you transmit!  I sense a topic for a PhD thesis here - "A
Determination of the Optimum Speed and Abbreviation Level in Transmitted
Morse Code for Contest Purposes".

73,
Doug


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Donald Field" <g3xtt at lineone.net>
To: <uk-contest at contesting.com>
Sent: Wednesday, June 02, 2004 8:35 AM
Subject: Re: [UK-CONTEST] CW Letters instead of Numbers


| "It doesn't seem right", you say, Andy. But why not? If there could be any
| confusion with letters, then I can understand. But in WPX all you are
| expecting is a number group, so there can be no ambiguity at all. I'm just
| surprised your correspondent sent "5nn aetn". I would have expected "enn
| aetn"! A second saved in a QSO is maybe 2,500 seconds in a contest, time
for
| another 100 QSOs, or several places in the final rankings! Just think what
| trouble those Formula One boys would go to to save the odd second here or
| there!! Trouble is, we Brits worry about whether "it's cricket" or not.
The
| rest of the world just want to win. Thank goodness our rugby team sat up
and
| paid attention (oops, not the Scottish rugby team, of course - sri!!).
|
| 73 Don G3XTT
|
| ----- Original Message ----- 
| From: "Andy swiffin" <a.l.swiffin at dundee.ac.uk>
| To: <uk-contest at contesting.com>
| Sent: Wednesday, June 02, 2004 9:18 AM
| Subject: [UK-CONTEST] CW Letters instead of Numbers
|
|
| > Hi,
| >
| > What "does the team think" about the current practice of using letters
| > rather than numbers in serials?  I know its common  practice to use 'n'
| > instead of '9' and 't' instead of '0', but I observed dozens of stations
| > replacing nearly all of the numbers, it came to a head when I received
| > "5nn aetn from 1 station!
| >
| > It doesn't seem right to me, I don't even use 't' very much except when
| > its at the beginning of the serial (i.e. below 100) when I send it as a
| > long 't', when I want a zero in the middle of a serial I send a good ol'
| > Sammy Morse zero.  If its acceptable practice to shorten the numbers
| > like this I'll do it but I have my doubts.
| >
| > Cheers
| > Andy
| > gm8oeg
| >
| >
| >
| > _______________________________________________
| > UK-Contest mailing list
| > UK-Contest at contesting.com
| > http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/uk-contest
| >
|
|
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