[UK-CONTEST] Contest exchanges

[Ian White GM3SEK]

Andy Cook, G4PIQ wrote:
>An interesting discussion - and maybe the rule was written back in the days
>when Ian was VHFCC Chairman so he may know more of the intention of the rule
>than I.

It's old, but not *that* old  :-)

I'd imagine that the intention was to reflect what was currently 
regarded as good practice. Pity they missed out the acknowledgement, 
though.

>However - our current practical interpretation is that the following
>exchange is perfectly acceptable.
>
>PIQ : CQ Contest G4PIQ
>SEK : GM3SEK
>PIQ : GM3SEK, 59184, JO01MU
>SEK : Roger, 59224, IO85ST
>PIQ : Roger, 73. G4PIQ Contest.
>
(Yeah, that'll be the day, when I'm giving a higher serial than Andy!)

Fair enough if that's the current interpretation, and apologies to 
Justin. It does have the advantage of making the basic structure the 
same as on HF.

>Interestingly, for MS or EME contacts, I accept that this is slightly less
>than the standard requirements for what makes a good QSO in that I have not
>copied my callsign back from Ian.

For MS and EME that would definitively make the contact incomplete. 
However, the VHF contest QSO involves passing a lot more information of 
other kinds, so it more than evens out I suppose.

>EME happens to be explicitly excluded, and
>I can't think of the last traditional MS contact that I've seen in a contest
>log (as opposed to the odd random QSO which happens to occur by MS), so it's
>basically a moot point at present.
>
Ah now, that's a different hare to chase! After having operated VHF 
contests in the States, I fell in love with their rules and the very 
different type of contest it creates. Scoring is by QSOs x Locator 
multipliers, with a short QSO format designed to encourage weak-signal 
DX QSOs. The QSO format *is* compatible with MS and EME requirements, so 
the rules encourage using both of those modes to pick up extra mults.


>Maybe we need to look at the wording of that clause when we revise the rules
>for 2007....

Yes, maybe so, since the "intention of the rule" has changed.



-- 
73 from Ian GM3SEK