HEY! It's CONTEST TIME again. CQ WPX all weekend.

[DMOD]

When the mode is right, it's all good.  AM contests, check. AM field day, check. AM moonbounce, check.  AM Ultra Highs, check.

15m was hot today.

I was calling CQ on 21.215 AM phone for a ragchew in between the SSBer's contests today, but alas, no takers.

Phil - AC0OB

[VE3GZB]

lotsa ducks quacking CQ contest on whatever frequency you're on.  

Good weekend to go to a hamfest or make some improvements to the shack.

You're not kidding! I try to search for an opening to call CQ this evening just for a ragchew on 40 and 20 and can't find an opening anywhere! It's silly IMHO!

I like rag-chewing! Sometimes I meet some interesting folks on the radio!

Contests? Blah, not for me.

73s, geo

[k4kyv]

Here is a strategy worth trying, when there is a QuaRMfest on.  Most QuaRMfests end promptly at 2400 GMT Sunday evening. Just as soon as the Q-test activity shuts down, there is usually a short lull in activity until the non-QuaRMfesters get fired up or the QuaRMfesters take a breather from operating, leaving many open frequencies to choose from. I was still tuned up on 7160 from earlier this afternoon, so promptly at 0000Z I started the automated CQ and snagged an AM station in SC first try. After we ended our QSO another AM station, in Utica, NY, called, and we carried on for a few more minutes.  The frequency was still vacant as I left the shack to take my own break from radio.

[K5UJ]

How soon we forget - back in February, we had three AM related contest activities on three consecutive weekends - AM Rally, Classic Exchange, AWA AM QSO party, and also, not to forget, the December Heavy Metal Rally. Even AM'ers are not immune to the "fun" and competitive spirit of these contest related type activities. As someone asked here on the board several weeks ago, "when's the next one?".

Please, those AM operating events are hardly "contests" in the conventional lizard brain sense of the word.  They are more like Straight Key Night.  Whatever "competitive spirit" existed in the AM events was genteel bordering on quaint; hardly the manic desperate rabid lunacy on display with every contest rage weekend.   Nothing was forgotten, there was nothing to forget since the AM activities were friendly and collegial.  If the raging caffeinated all knobs clockwise nub-head events are the Olympics, then the AM operating events (for which the term contest is a misnomer) are shuffleboard on the deck of a cruise ship.  

The whole formula for the modern day contest defies reason and logic.  It was long ago established that with the right equipment and antennas and the right frequency, a radio signal will reach every square inch of surface of the earth.  It is no longer necessary to prove this with a contest (partly the reason in the very early days of radio when hams were not so ubiquitous and "all hands on deck" on certain weekends made it easy to establish communications ranges for stations).  

Then there is the absurd exchanges which are predictable, and pointless.  What on earth is the reason for giving everyone 59, or 599?  The answer is usually "emergency preparedness."  Okay, then exchange a real simulated message, sort of like what is done in the Sweepstakes, but why not make it more authentic, with randomly generated real sounding messages?  the software to do this would be easy to set up.   Or at least have a set of 20 emergency texts programmed, each one two or three sentences, that would be randomly cycled through, one for each QSO.  Or just do away with exchanges entirely since they are pointless and harmlessly insane, and have a CQing station simply say "W9--- I hear you calling me, do you hear me?"  "Yes I do, this is W9---"  "Okay thanks, QRZ...."  That would at least have a bit of logic to it.  

Field Day has really become a joke.   It is high time the ARRL de-contest that event by issuing the start time and weekend a few hours ahead of it (Rodger's suggestion I believe) and they could also award points for everything except numbers of QSOs and multipliers.  They should establish metrics for emergency preparedness and emergency efficiency and versatility, and de-prioritize the contest angle as much as possible.

Rob

[VE3GZB]

 
Then there is the absurd exchanges which are predictable, and pointless.  What on earth is the reason for giving everyone 59, or 599?

I noticed that too. Everyone gets the best signal report? Impossible! I thought the whole purpose was for honesty in gauging one's own transmitter and antenna efficiency.

I've never given a signal report with the RST system, it seems to relative and ambiguous to me, subject to the receiver operator's mood and hearing ability.

I just read what comes off the S meter and tell it honestly. Even sometimes when someone is coming in at 10 over S9, the signal may drift up and down in strength, so even with a signal measurement from a meter it's still not exact - but should never be 5 9 or 5 9 9. That seems to be intellectually dishonest to me.

Oh well, what do I know.

73s
geo

[K9ACT]

I did the same as Don but didn't know when it ended.

Took a look at 0600 local, saw nothing, said testing 1 2 3 and had a one hour rag chew with KF5CD something and later, W9AD joined.  This was on 14.286.  The 5 was running 32 W and booming in at 10 over for the whole hour.

The mushrooms had all  deliquesced.  How's that for a word?  Any mushroomer will know it.

They pop up like mushrooms and dissolve into a splotch of ink when it is over.

Jack

[Pete, WA2CWA]

  If then the AM operating events (for which the term contest is a misnomer) are shuffleboard on the deck of a cruise ship.  

Rob

Yep, and probably just as exciting. I can just feel that team spirit blowing "in" the wind.

[k4kyv]

Then there is the absurd exchanges which are predictable, and pointless.  What on earth is the reason for giving everyone 59, or 599?

I noticed that too. Everyone gets the best signal report? Impossible! I thought the whole purpose was for honesty in gauging one's own transmitter and antenna efficiency.

I've never given a signal report with the RST system, it seems to relative and ambiguous to me, subject to the receiver operator's mood and hearing ability.

I just read what comes off the S meter and tell it honestly. Even sometimes when someone is coming in at 10 over S9, the signal may drift up and down in strength, so even with a signal measurement from a meter it's still not exact - but should never be 5 9 or 5 9 9. That seems to be intellectually dishonest to me.

A year or two ago there was a thread on this subject on QRZ.com. Several of the QuaRMfest regulars said that it is "bad QuaRMfest etiquette" to give any other report than 5/9(9) because most serious QuaRMfesters use logging software, which is set to enter 5/9 by default.  If a station receives anything other as a report, the op has to stop and manually enter the correct numbers and this wastes precious QuaRMfest time.  The op could just ignore the non-5/9 report, but he doesn't know whether or not the other station is submitting a log, and if there is a discrepancy in entries, that contact could be disqualified, and in some QuaRMfests, there is a penalty for excessive errors or discrepancies in the logging data.

In other words, it supposedly pisses QuaRMfesters off if they receive a report other than "five-nine".

I have entertained the idea of stealthily participating in a slopbucket QuaRMfest, running AM, and intentionally giving everything but a "five-nine" report, then submitting a log for the few contacts I make, but ultimately, I decided that I have better things to do with my time.  But imagine the havoc it would raise if a large number of anti-QuaRMfesters conspired to do just that.  

I have occasionally participated in the 160m CW contests in the middle of the day, near high noon, just to see what I could work.  When I do that, I always give honest reports, and likewise, I have received honest reports from other stations. I recall once working a W2 in NJ at noon local time, running 100 watts to an inverted vee, 40 ft. in the air. Neither report in the exchange was 599.

I always thought one of the purported objectives of a QuaRMfest was to see how well your signal gets out and what kind of signals you could receive.  Averaging out the signal reports over an entire weekend or throughout an entire QuaRMfest  season would help you determine the overall effectiveness of your station and your antennae in different directions at various distances.  This fine-nine nonsense defeats that purpose, which should be close to the number one valid, significant objective of QuaRMfesting.  I seem to recall hearing exchanges of honest signal reports as recently as the 70's or 80's, perhaps even the 90's so maybe this really is a recent phenomenon that came with the advent of widespread computer usage. But it must be an "unwritten" understanding amongst QuaRMfesters, because whenever I look over the rules in CQ or QST in a QuaRMfest announcement, they just mention "signal report" as part of the exchange, but nothing about mandatory "five-nine".

As for the logging entries, I can't imagine the people who make up a QuaRMfest committee receiving hundreds or thousands of paper logs and checking each one for the least discrepancy in any single logging entry.  This has to be done 100% by computer to-day, but back in the 50's and 60's when QuaRMfest activity was at its peak, with probably considerably higher participation than to-day, paper logs were the only option.  Those people must have really had time on their hands. How could they possibly have had any kind of family or social life or hold down gainful employment?  

[Pete, WA2CWA]

I always thought one of the purported objectives of a QuaRMfest was to see how well your signal gets out and what kind of signals you could receive.  Averaging out the signal reports over an entire weekend or throughout an entire QuaRMfest  season would help you determine the overall effectiveness of your station and your antennae in different directions at various distances.  This fine-nine nonsense defeats that purpose, which should be close to the number one valid, significant objective of QuaRMfesting.  I seem to recall hearing exchanges of honest signal reports as recently as the 70's or 80's, perhaps even the 90's so maybe this really is a recent phenomenon that came with the advent of widespread computer usage. But it must be an "unwritten" understanding amongst QuaRMfesters, because whenever I look over the rules in CQ or QST in a QuaRMfest announcement, they just mention "signal report" as part of the exchange, but nothing about mandatory "five-nine".

As for the logging entries, I can't imagine the people who make up a QuaRMfest committee receiving hundreds or thousands of paper logs and checking each one for the least discrepancy in any single logging entry.  This has to be done 100% by computer to-day, but back in the 50's and 60's when QuaRMfest activity was at its peak, with probably considerably higher participation than to-day, paper logs were the only option.  Those people must have really had time on their hands. How could they possibly have had any kind of family or social life or hold down gainful employment?  

The main objective is point count. The more contacts, sections, states, countries, zones, etc., the more points. As long as the exchange is sent both ways and acknowledged, you're done to move on to the next one. Whether you're buried in the QRM, or with a signal at the noise level, as long as the exchange and acknowledgment is made on both ends, you're done. The signal report exchange is meaningless for most contest operators. It's been a carry-over from the "good old days". Most, if not all, VHF contests have eliminated the need, or make it optional, to give a signal report. Generally, all we pass is Grid-Square info.

Most of your major contest logging is done electronically and submitted in a standardized electronic form depending on the type of contest.

[W3SLK]

Pete said:

The signal report exchange is meaningless for most contest operators.

Yeah, right! I find that their QRMtests are meaningless!