This is sure to upset the troops and generate a lot of hate mail, so here
goes:
Use of the FRIEND.INI file is insincere and a collosial waste of time.
While it is "nice" to see your name on the screen, it's about as personal as
those computer generated mass e-mails the spammers send out, or the Visa card
solicitations that come in the mail. I don't really know 99% of the people I
work in a contest. I appreciate them being there, but I don't know them. To
the ones I DO know, I always send a short message, like I did when I worked
AA5AU (Hey! Big Don!) or GU0SUP (Phil ur a stalwart -- always there tnx). I'd
rather get three messages from people I know, than 1,497 from those I don't.
(What comes to mind are the people who have never worked you before and start
calling you by your exact first name as it appears in your FCC record.
Others have you in the log, once, seven years ago and they come on like it's
old-home week. There is a word for this: INSINCERE. The only people who call
me
"Michael" are people who don't know me, and my XYL when she's highly hacked.)
Then there is the subject of wasting time.
Others made more; I made 1,500 QSOs in the CQ WW RTTY test. Given that it
takes approximately one second to send "HI MIKE", that means I wasted up to 25
minutes reading my own name on the screen! That's nearly half-an-hour of
operating time. I could make another 40 or 50 QSOs in that amount of time!
And if
I wasted time sending "HI NAME" to everyone, that would be nearly an HOUR of
time wasted. (60 - 80 additional QSOs and, who knows how many of those would
have been mults?)
The goal of a contest is to make the MOST contacts, whether QSOs or Mults.
The argument, "It's ONLY a contest" is specious. Being polite is important.
Being chummy is not, in a contest setting.
There's nothing wrong with being nice, but sending out a computer-generated
greeting from a list furnished by someone else is highly impersonal and
insincere. (Kind of like those Christmas cards where the name is printed.)
To the guys who worked hours and hours compiling the FRIEND.INI file(s), I
say, "Thanks." To those who want me to send a computer-generated greeting
their
way in the middle of each contest QSO I say, "No Thanks!."
73,
W0YR/4
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