Hi John, AA5JG:
Here's my experience.
I received this W0ETT callsign 51 years ago and have had a variety of problems
of folks getting it mixed up on CW over the years. Since I retired in 1998 and
have spent more time in a variety of domestic of CW HF/VHF contests, and DX
contests, I've found that the E is the most common letter that folks mess up.
When calling a station in a contest, I've had them come back with mostly the
correct callsign. Thanks, guys! But, I've had some of them also come back to
the following callsigns: W0TT, W0TTT, W0ET, W9ET, W9ETT, W0EET, W0EEE, W0ETC,
W0ATT, W0ITT, W0W?, and somehow W2ETT, W4ETT, and a few N0ETT. I've sent my
call fast, I've sent my call slow... When I hear that they get it wrong, I've
tried to make sure they get the call correctly by going back again to get it
across. If they keep trying, I keep trying...because I know if they log it
wrong, they get a penalty.
The good news is that the regular contesters, after working me a lot over the
years, usually get it okay even when I send it pretty fast. Some of the
contest DXpeditions ops do a great job picking up the callsign but, I'm
guessing, that its probably because they've heard it before in a contest. But,
like Joe W9ET, I tend to send the E with a little more spacing when sending
manually.
I've had my callsign for a long time and, at going on 70 yrs, I probably won't
change it unless I move out of the Zero District and can find something a
better. But, if I was going to change it or modify it, I'd opt to change the E
to something more readily, quickly understood like an A, K, M, O, T, and etc. -
but, most of those are taken. By the way, the TT on the end of the call has
been a big help as it can be picked up pretty easily. However, there are a lot
of TT's around these days compared to a long time ago.
Thanks for being patient with copying my callsign!
73 Ken Anderson, W0ETT
Parker, CO
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