[HIham] Hawaii Rare DX?

[Mike W. Burger]

I seem to get a wave of SASE's after participating in a contest,
if I make a serious effort and run up a significant number of contacts.

Hawaii HF does seem rare in certain modes and frequencies.  Like
80 meters in almost any mode, and digital modes, also people collect
callsigns and counties and all sorts of variations.  Hawaii is nearly
always welcome on the various worked all states networks like HHH and
3905.  PSK31, Slow scan TV or other special mode just ups the rarity
vs SSB.

If you are a member of FISTS or other special organization, people
also collect those and try to do WAS in FISTS or QRP contacts only.
A Hawaii FISTS contact is usually somewhat "rare".

Plus Hawaii is a DX country, so there has to be a few people that
want it for that, there has to be a first Hawaii contact for each
ham.

People will search the contests looking for special things they
want.  A nasty trend recently has been "Uniques".  This says that
if you enter a contest with a log, and there are stations in your
log that are not in several other submitted logs, then you are considered
to have faked that contact and it is deleted from your log!  This
is a clear discouragement to bothering with people with low serial
numbers or for rare stations getting into contests to make an hour or
so of contacts for fun.  Hawaii on 80 meter RTTY can be rare enough
that 1/3rd of your contacts will be people seeing the DX spot and
tracking you down.

Fine for them, but when log checking comes you can see your score
decline significantly as your "fake" contacts are deleted.  Of course
the self same "fake" contacts are the ones you get QSL's with SASE's
less than 5 days after the contest ends.

Magazines like CQ are basically saying "Keep off the bands when we
are contesting!" and disallowing the practice of trying to score a
rare or other contact that is desirable for some special reason.
For ages this opportunity to find rare of special requirement contacts
during a contest has been one of the justifications for having contests
chew up one segment or another of the bands each and every weekend.

So far "Uniques" have only appeared in the RTTY contests like CQWW
Will it spread to the SSB and CW versions?  Unknown.

What to do about it?  One could accept that the more unique your
callsign or location is, the more you should be penalized for
participation in a contest, vs mainland US stations.  Or you could
refuse to QSL contacts deleted from your log.  That would be a nasty
practice, denying that QSL to the fellow who has been trying for
years to get WAS on 80 meters because he did not call a half dozen
California stations afterwards in an effort to find some more people
who are going to submit logs in that contest.

It really sucks when you work Europe over the pole on 20 meter RTTY
and the first cut of the check program says that 100 out of 300
contacts is faked.  Makes you wonder why you participated in the contest
in the first place.

Given the huge number of certificates, endorsements, awards of all kinds
with special notations on them, Hawaii can be "rare" for someone somewhere
at any given time.  With DX spotting nets, if you spend significant time
in a major contest from Hawaii, someone will likely spot you on the net
and that plus those scanning the band looking for needed stuff, will likely
result in some prompt QSL cards from some happy hams. Good reason to work HF.