30-03-2018, 09:48 AM
(27-03-2018, 09:05 AM)VK4ADC Wrote: Your solution ??
gnal reports in Contests a waste of time!"
OK I like contests - All contests have an exchange that needs to be copied but the signal report usually does not matter. Eg the RD, the years licenced or the John Moyle, a serial number.
The report tends to be a precursor to the information you need - so hearing the 59 or the 5NN you are ready for the important exchange. Does it really matter that the report incoming is accurate? Possibly but the practice of the standard 59(9) goes back to the 1950s it is one of those peculiarities of the hobby.
During rag chew reports make up an important part of proceedings but in the contest world they are not, I must agree with Doug that getting them in the log is a big difference- Until you have operated one of the first class contest stations you really have no idea how big the pileups can be - A few years back I operated VK7ZE on 15M into EU on SSB and even as an experienced operator the pileup was that intense it took anything up to 30 seconds to be able to pull out a callsign. While you can hear the pileup on a vertical you don't hear the mayhem that an additional 30db (location + antenna) will produce...