Should contest rules allow and act upon 599K QRM reports?

Sunday 5 February 2012

Black Sea Cup RN3F and UW1M

I was going to play on 10m this morning but couldn't be bothered due to the Black Sea Cup contest in full swing. I am a contester myself, so it wasn't that the contest itself was unpleasant, it was the standard of transmissions that immediately turned me off. RN3F was on again with an interesting variation on his previous poor transmission. I'd like to think he's trying to do something about the QRM he causes every contest, as there is a noted difference as shown below.
















He now has a 300Hz wide chirp which means he is no longer the worst offender. That title has now got to go to UW1M (top left, above RN3F). He was 594K (actually 59+30dB) and approx 2KHz wide.

I had a look at QRZ for UW1M and he is sitting next to what looks like an IC7700 so it must be the dreaded home-brew amplifier or operator error (ALC or overdriving). No wonder contesters get a bad name.

I normally argue against the non-contest fraternity, that contesters are striving to improve themselves by perfecting all the radio disciplines pertaining to their station before the contest, the contest itself being the result of that hard work. The above station clearly needs to spend more time doing this.