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[CQ-Contest] Does might make right in contesting?

Subject: [CQ-Contest] Does might make right in contesting?
From: Jimk8mr@aol.com (Jimk8mr@aol.com)
Date: Fri Feb 25 10:27:54 2000
In a message dated 2/25/00 1:05:08 AM Eastern Standard Time, k4ro@k4ro.net 
writes:

> 
>  I am curious how the contesting community feels about this one.
>  This is not intended as an exercise in finger pointing, although
>  I am tempted to note one particular example from a very prominent 
>  USA M/M station this last weekend.  But what's the point?  Everybody
>  knows that it happens, and most ops know who the worst offenders are.
>  Just like most people know who runs gas, etc., word gets out.

Go ahead and name the names, so long as you can also document the time, 
frequency, etc.  Several years I was the victim of what I considered an 
egregious frequency theft by N2RM.  I mentioned it in a contest/3830 posting, 
with details.  I got a prompt response from RM explaining that the operator 
involved was a non-regular, and a guy who was newer to contesting.  And RM 
promised to have a talk with the guy and explain to him what was and was not 
acceptable operating practice.  I accepted this apology, and feel much better 
for it all, rather than keeping quiet and bitching to this day that the N2RM 
crew is bunch of jerks, which they are not.

We can never have "peer pressure" if no one will step up to identify the bad 
guys.

  
>  The question is simple: is it OK to take a frequency from someone?
  Are there times when it is OK and times when it is not?  Please explain.
  

I would cut some slack for DX stations in rare places. If CE0ZY or 5H3US 
needs a frequency where he can run the hundreds of guys who will need him for 
a new multiplier, and maybe even a new DXCC country, I wouldn't get bent out 
of shape if they became aggressive frequency hunters.  Especially if he 
worked me first.  Note the rareness factor.  This does not apply to DLs, OKs, 
etc.
  

  
> Is it acceptable for mega-stations to battle it out in the "prime"
> real-estate, and the "meek & weak" should stay the hell away? :-)

The bottom band edges are always filled by the big M/Ms, and I don't know how 
or when the edge position is decided from the handful of candidates.  But 
those frequencies are never open when I get there, so I don't sweat it.

  

I think a more interesting question may be: When is it OK for a station to 
take a frequency vacated  (temporarily, in his mind) by a big station?  In 
the last CQWW SSB, which I was not actively involved in, I ran across this 
situation:  I was just listening around on 20 meters, and heard KC1XX at 
14165 calling a VE2 or some such non exotic station.  Since I had previously 
heard XX CQing on 14150, I went to 14150, which was empty.  If I had started 
CQing there (I did not) would I then have had the "claim" to 150?   Should XX 
have had any expectation of having 150 available after he had changed 
frequencies to call and work that VE2?  Would it have mattered if I had 
worked anyone else on 150 before XX returned?

I'm sure that the resolution to this hypothetical case would have come under 
the category of "might makes right".  But it does have some bearing on the 
remarkable (to me) situation where the big multis seem to start, end, and 
spend every minute in between, CQing on the same frequency.


Jim  K8MR 


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