[UK-CONTEST] Attitudes to SSB and CW contesting

[Ray Goff]

Hi all,

Like most of the postings here, SSB contesting is my least favourite
pastime, so I asked myself why? 

I came to the conclusion that the skills required to be successful are much
higher for SSB than CW contesting. 

With CW there are basically two parameters that change from QSO to QSO,
namely speed and pitch. This holds true for well over 90% of the Q's,
putting aside for the moment the earlier comments on sending callsigns!

In an SSB contest, speed is less of an issue, but pitch still remains.
However, you also have to deal with a whole range of accents and the most
whacky selection of phonetics that I have ever come across. It is the
accents and phonetics that are my downfall. I could probably even deal with
the accents, but the combination of accents and phonetics just does me in! I
recall an IOTA contest where I had to keep asking for repeats not because
the signal was weak, but because I could not get one letter of the callsign.
In the end another operator had to help me out, my brain had just frozen.

Having said that, the problem is largely mine, I don't operate at the SSB
end of the band so I am ill prepared for the mode. I made that choice long
ago based on the etiquette of the operators.

I guess that my brains deals best with two dimensional ambiguity, so roll on
the next CW contest!

73

Ray, G4FON