[UK-CONTEST] CW Letters instead of Numbers

[Ian White, G3SEK]

Don Wrote:

>And here I disagree with Ian G3SEK. Yes, most adjudicators penalise the 
>receiving station if the exchange is copied incorrectly (in some 
>contests, though not CQ, both stations are penalised, by the way).

Thanks for that correction, Don - but it does also confirm that in a CQ 
contest, it's easy to get away with poor sending that puts the whole 
burden of copying on the other guy.

> But if the receiving station is not happy with the QSO he has an 
>alternative recourse, which is not to log the QSO at all. Then the 
>sending station gets penalised for "not in log".
>
That doesn't seem very likely. If an inexperienced S&Per has been 
bounced into letting the guy go without asking for a repeat, he's 
probably not going to take the "suicide option" of deleting the whole 
QSO. I think most will stay on the frequency and listen to a few more 
exchanges until they've worked it out; so once again they lose time, 
while the speed merchant speeds on.

>As Chris G3SJJ says, the trick for any operator is to be flexible 
>according to the calling station. Be ready to slow down, send repeats 
>or whatever as appropriate. But again, this has little to do with cut 
>numbers as such, and everything to do with good operating in general.

Absolutely!

But how can you get this point across to the operators we're dealing 
with here? The feedback from their UBN reports isn't going to make them 
change their ways - it will be too little and too late. When they see 
how many points they've lost in 2004, they'll most likely crank it up 
even faster in UTTE.

The *really* annoying thing is, I know I'll be back to work them again 
:-)


-- 
73 from Ian G3SEK         'In Practice' columnist for RadCom (RSGB)
http://www.ifwtech.co.uk/g3sek