[Wswss] contest etiquette

[Tom Carney]

Greetings all

Tom, K6EU here.  I'm a new member of the reflector although I've been a
member of WSWSS for several years.  I didn't know about the reflector until
I read "contest protocol" article in this months Backscatter.

As an active VHF contest operator I was delighted to see the comments about
using the calling frequency during contest.  I also found the archive
listing and read the comments made after last June's contest.

As a rover who is often a weak signal, the clutter on 144.200 is frequently
a problem.  I've made multiple attempts to get people to move off 144.2 with
little success.  Normally when I begin operation in a new grid, I make a
short call on 144.2 (CQ contest K6EU/r CM86 listening 144.220) and then move
up.  Unfortunately this seldom works. I'm forced to come back to 144.2 and
listen for calls there.  I'll bet well over 90% of my 2M Qs are on 144.2
despite my attempts to get other stations to move off.  Calling CQ away from
144.2 has proven to be an almost complete waste of time.

Anyone have a proposal to get (us) contest stations to spread out?

Another issues raised in the comments after the June contest was moving to
another band before working all those on 2M.  OK I'm guilty.  While I
usually give a short listen prior to moving I don't always come back to the
2M frequency.  Now that I'm ware of this problem, I make sure I do better in
future contest.

73,  Tom  K6EU