Your first HF CW contest

 Here are some handy tips and hints to remember for your first CW contest:

Running (calling cq)

you:    cq your call test

other:    his call

you:    his call 599 exchange

other:    599 exchange

you: tu your call

S&P (search and pounce)

other:    cq his call test

you:    your call

other:    your call 599 exchange

you:    599 exchange

other: tu his call

What could be simpler? Well it would seem the a certain country can't manage it. In S&P they like to do the following:

other:    cq his call test

you:    your call

other:    your call 599 exchange

you:    cfm 599 exchange

other: tu his call

you: tu

The 'cfm' is implicit and unnecessary and wastes the other persons Qs/min rate. During QSB you are guaranteed to hear CFM 599 ......... and nothing else promting you to shout "just give me the exchange!". The final unnecessary "tu" however is the real kicker as this masks the next caller and causes the pile-up to stall, a real f**k you very much for the contact.

These extras are not in the default macros of any contest logger software, so this country operators actually go in and add them!

Some other strange habits, if you get their call wrong due to multiple callers in a pile-up, they are programmed to repeat their call twice, sometimes without even completing the exchange. What they don't realise is when you have called them (even with a slightly wrong callsign), the rest of the pile-up stalls and they are in the clear, the double repeat just hacks everyone off and stalls the pile-up unnecessarily.

Why so pedantic, you try doing many 24 hours straight contests over a period of 30+ years and having to deal with the same stupidity every year...it's about time they were told.

While I have your attention, never, never, never send a '?', just wait patiently for the operator to give their callsign. The reason they don't give their callsign is because they don't want you to call. Sending a '?' is just going to mask the other callers he does want to call and this will cause you to have to wait longer.

The height of stupidity is asking the running station for their call, please just listen for as long as it takes till you are sure you have it right BEFORE calling. Never, never, never expect a station to QRS for you, you have all the the time in the world to decode it BEFORE calling.

A lot of this guide is contrary to what you have been taught, this is because casual operating and dxing is NOT the same as contesting. Please reward contest operators for giving you a contact of a lifetime by being EFFICENT cfm?