[UK-CONTEST] CQWW RTTY - GM5A

[tom wylie]

I don't know why I do this contest, it just raises my blood pressure.   
Contesting is supposed to be fun!

Every problem you could associate with RTTY and contesting, appears in 
this contest, and then some.
Its a double edged sword that a lot of people appear only for the 
contest and unfortunately they are not "real" RTTY contesters.

They have inappropriate messages in their function keys.  i.e. too long 
winded.
Some people happily send their callsign with an F key, but come back 
typing free hand - some being "free-er" than others....
Some people take so long to send their call, they have been QRM'd, QSB'd 
or both thus requiring several repeats.

Many times I received something like this:   GM5A  GM5A  GM5A de P2&%$* 
- on sending the
QRZ or AGN message - yep you guessed it I got  GM5A  GM5A  GM5A de 
P*&£$&F£AS.
Trust me, I do know my own callsign - its YOUR i have difficulty with.   
When calling a contest station just send

DE GM5A GM5A            its as simple as that.    The "DE" ensures I can 
capture your callsign (depending on my software) and if I dont get your 
callsing within two calls, I will tell YOU, or ask for a repeat.

Keep overs short and preferrably finish with a "K" >  GM5A 599 15 DK0EE 
K  in my opinion this is a valid QSO - MYCALL - report as required by 
rules then YOURCALL followed by a K..

I send something like  DK0EE TU QRZ GM5A TEST.......   easy peezy.

Dont park your mark tone on top of my space tone or vice versa...... 
that increases my blood pressure.

Don't call on top of a weaker station assuming they will quietly go away 
- I won't.

QSOB4 is too much bother - just work mults and let the software work it 
out.   It takes too long to argue in RTTY.

Some signals drift badly and some tones sound like somebody sawing 
wood.  Please sort out your station dont leave it till 5 minutes before 
kick off and assume MMTTY will take care of it.

Like CQWW SSB and CW, due to the high volume of stations on the band 
inevitabley will be OUT OF THE VOLUNTARY BAND PLAN.....   Live with it - 
its only a few weekends a year.  There are WARC bands 24/7-365 contest 
free.   All bands are contest free Monday - Friday.

Despite all that I enjoyed myself immensely.   Thanks to Gavin GM0GAV 
for allowing me the "freedom" of his station, and the perseverance of 
his good wife Margaret for feeding me and looking after me for the 
weekend.   The coffee pot remained operative for 48 hours.  This was the 
breakdown of GM5A - SOAB(A)


 BAND   QSO  CQ DXC DUP S/P  POINTS   AVG
------------------------------------------
   80   339  13  51   5  19     733  2.16
   40   603  24  65   4  35    1388  2.30
   20   945  28  80   6  52    2483  2.63
   15   110  19  40   1  10     263  2.39
   10     4   2   2   0   0       9  2.25
------------------------------------------
TOTAL  2001  86 238  16 116    4876  2.44
==========================================
         TOTAL SCORE : 2 145 440

I dont think a great score, but better than my last serious effort in 2007.

80m and 40m were in good shape - as usual 20m provided the bulk of the 
QSOs.   10m
I worked all I heard and on Sunday worked an EE9 on an otherwise dead 
band.  Frustrating to see spots for FT5GA on 10/15 but nothing heard.   
Heard them on 20m and 40m, but they were running only USA and Japan at 
the time.

Its nice to work from a quiet QTH in the Country instead of my noisy 
city edge QTH at home.

73 de Tom
GM4FDM / GM5A