[UK-CONTEST] Time to ditch the signal report?

[Dave Sergeant]

Although RST may be redundant in contests, you must take into 
consideration that many of us (most) also use QSOs made in contests to 
chase various awards. Although it seems RST is not needed for DXCC 
claims the same cannot be said for many other awards. What are we going 
to do for QSLs for these QSOs, simply leave the RST boxes blank? And if 
we are going to abandon it for contest QSOs, what about all the 
DXpedition pileup QSOs where the report is all that is actually 
exchanged - perhaps we just send our callsign, the other station 
repeats it and says 'R' or 'TU' and you have to respond with similar...

No, a report is an integral part of what is considered as a QSO and 
should NOT be dropped. (and that is one of the reasons why I do NOT 
enter the RSGB sprints, when I work somebody I want a report, 
meaningful or not).

73 Dave G3YMC

On 28 Jun 2012 at 8:51, Stewart Rolfe wrote:

> All this fussing about 59(9) or 'correct' signal reports seems
> irrelevant to me..... The point of a contest exchange is to copy
> correctly certain data - callsign, a serial number, locator or whatever.
> A signal report tells nothing pertinent to the contest situation, and on
> HF with perhaps 3 or 4 signals in your passband is impossible to judge
> per signal anyway; hence the customary '599 - agn ur serial??' situation
> much ridiculed by non-contesters. So why don't the contest organisers
> bite the bullet and get rid of compulsory reports? Sending 599 for each
> contact flies in the face of the contest ethos where the idea is to
> avoid all redundant information which the 599 most definitely is. It
> works in the Sprints despite the occasional plea from some that
>  the 599 is useful as a cue for the following 'important' information. I
> think everyone if arguing about the wrong thing......


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