[UK-CONTEST] When should I QRS?

[Bob Henderson]

OK you've got me.  Here comes my 2 cents.......

Surely no one can seriously be suggesting, that all CW should be sent at a
speed matching the capability of the least competent operator who might just
be listening?  Of course not.  That would be daft wouldn't it.  Similarly
effective would be a day to day limit on our use of vocabulary to around one
hundred words, articulated very slowly, pigeon fashion; just in case someone
challenged by the English language might be listening.

So when then should I QRS?

1.  When an increase in communication rate will likely result.

2.  When I call someone working at less than my current rate.  Except where
I know that person will be happy and able to receive at my higher rate.  E.g
I hear G3SXW sending at 15 wpm, completing a QSO.  I might then call Roger
at 25 wpm, knowing full well he is competent at that speed.

3.  When asked to do so by someone I am in QSO with.

This last one is KEY.

If I am sending at 25 wpm and you call me at 15wpm, I will assume you can
read my 25wpm unless you ask me to QRS.  It would impolite & inappropriate
to consider you incompetent at 25wpm, merely because you have chosen to send
at 15wpm.  IMHO this would be the equivalent of speaking slowly to someone
with a speech impediment or addressing someone who is wheelchair bound in
the third person.  If we are in QSO and you can't read at my sending speed,
the onus is upon you to request a QRS not upon me to inflict one upon you.

If I am in QSO with someone else and you choose to send QRS QRS on the
frequency, don't expect me to oblige.  I am NOT being rude, you ARE.

Those who are learning CW will always find folks sending faster than they
can receive.  So call the ones you can read adequately, when measured
against the demands of the type of QSO you are about to embark upon.  Don't
try to have a detailed rag-chew at 35wpm if you are only competent to do so
at 12wpm.  However, if after listening for some time to someone working a
rubber stamp pile-up at 30wpm, you have confidently discerned his call and
you are competent to recognise your own call reliably at that speed, then
why not attempt a QSO.  He is not suddenly going to change the nature of his
traffic, passing vital life saving info when he works you.

CW is like so many other things in life.  If you don't stretch, you won't
improve.  So stretch.  It's fun.

Bob 5B4AGN