Contest Exchange & Cut Numbers
Thinking about contest exchanges and cut numbers.
Contest Exchanges.
Am I a contest exchange clone? Yes and I don't like it. Why? I like a challenge and the cloning of exchanges especially a signal report (i.e. 5NN or 5N) is dull and redundant. Everyone under the ionosphere is 5NN or 5N and I have yet to receive anything less than that. In fact, during the last contest once I logged the station, the software took care of the rest. It simply filled in the information and I confirmed it with my ears specifically the other operator's callsign.
Is it time to retire the signal report from contest exchanges? A 5NN or 5N report doesn't make sense to me especially when I'm running 50-watts. I bet my signal report is more like 559, 549, 449, or 349 in any given contest. And, I would like an authentic signal report but, it just does not happen. A real-world signal report would give me a good idea about the performance of my station as well.
What are we holding onto? Tradition? But this is a segway into another topic.
Perhaps our contest sponsors might consider loosing the signal report in favor of serial numbers or variants thereof. My brain tunes out the signal report and I like a good challenge in the exchange such as NCJ's Sprint or the ARRL Sweepstakes. My CW skill significantly improved after Sweepstakes and running the Sprint for a second time. But, during the ARRL DX CW, I morphed into a keyboard exchange clone.
This leads me into my second topic.
Cut Numbers.
I remember well using cut numbers as a Novice or while operating as DV2/KA3DRR back in the mid-80s. A cut-number is anything that shortens the otherwise official exchange for example, sending 5NN is a cut for 599 or OOA or TTA for 001 and so on. The idea is to improve one's run rate. However, I thought about this, "What would happen if someone brand new to contesting tuned into an operator sending cut numbers?"
My conclusion? Cut numbers are counter productive for the new contester. The cut number operator just might miss that one QSO or one needed multiplier because the other doesn't understand what is going on within the exchange.
Secondly, cut numbers might suggest stagnation creeping into various contest exchanges as well. We've become this mass mind accustomed to 5NN or 5N in an exchange.
I'm going to program my contesting software to send the full exchange in the next contest. I'll try to remember this pledge as well. It's just an extra 6-dahs to do so and this is for the contesting newcomer.
Contest on.
