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

Saturday, 7 March 2020

ARRL DX SSB contest Poor Education on Transmit audio and Transmission Width

There seems to be a lot of SSB operators who don't understand why setting up your transmit audio as per the manual is important. Instead they ask a station on another continent to give them a transmit audio check. They will keep on increasing their mike gain on the basis they are told their audio is getting louder without detectable distortion. Radios like the Yaesu FT2000  and the FT1000MP were the worst, as you could keep winding up the mike gain to sound loud. However, the by-product of doing this is splatter, turning your 3KHz signal into a 6+KHz signal. Someone on another continent is unlikely to be able to hear or see your bandwidth growing as normally splatter is 30-60 dB down from the 3KHz main audio. The real effect will be apparent only to local stations or on bands where your signal is well over S9. For instance the ARRL DX SSB contest has most of Eastern Europe beaming directly over the UK, most of these signals heard on 20m in the UK are 6+KHz wide and trying to compete is pointless. Not adjusting your radios tx audio (as per the manual) is cheating, plain and simple, ignorance is not an excuse. I'm sure it isn't a matter of poverty as most QRZ page search results reveal modern equipment, I am convinced it is a matter of education. The ARRL DX SSB contest is currently in full swing and the biggest offender on 20m is:

HA8JV

who is 10KHz wide. I gave him a QRM report and his answer was "understand", he then asked a US station what is audio sounded like, the US operator replied "perfectly readable".... This is a perfect example of the problem.