[Elecraft] K2 QSK

[Ron D'Eau Claire]

Vic wrote:

In order to time your calls in a pileup, you need to hear the DX station 
start working another station or send TU after finishing a QSO.
--------------------------
In that case I'm not sending, so I don't need to hear between dits.

I suspected that might be the most useful place for between-the-dits extreme
QSK, where stations pile on top of each other without exercising any
discipline at all. It does little good to keep shouting while the person
whose attention you are trying to attract has responded to someone else,
although I rather feel that if I'm QRMing the other person it was only
because he/she was QRMing me by calling on top of me. I never start calling
if I hear others calling before I start, and I expect anyone who responds
more slowly to wait their turn. I know, that's not how many contesters
behave. 

Contesting is too often just a 'barroom brawl' on the Ham bands.

That's why I disagree with those who claim that contesting produces useful
skills for anything but contesting. That's like saying that being able to
hold your own in a barroom brawl is good training for how to behave in
polite company.

I'll stick with polite company where people don't normally shout over me or
try to interrupt in the middle of a word or even in mid-sentence! 

(There! That's undoubtedly renewed my curmudgeon credentials for another
year or two...)

Ron AC7AC