CW etiquette for Special Event Stations and DX 

I just added "Don't send K after your callsign" to things you shouldn't do. They'll often think that's part of your call. Send ONLY your callsign, and nothing else

Great job, Evan! Thanks for putting this together!!

Thanks for this. Lots of good info in here, with examples of good/bad behavior. I'll be sharing this. I was operating as a 13 Colonies station this week and experienced pretty much all of the LIDery you talk about, aside from split which I didn't run. Most people are just fine, but just a few is all it takes to really piss off the station calling and muck up a pileup. As for sending off frequency a little, I suggest folks don't go too crazy. I had a few people sending 200 Hz off, which is about the limit of what my filter will let through. Warning: Bug gripes I'm sorry, but bug operators with excessive drawl are VERY difficult to copy. And for heaven's sake, you still need proper timing/spacing. I fought with a guy whose call I swore ended in a "B" but it was really "TS". He kept making the dah longer, but not leaving a space before the dits. I tried responding with exaggerated farnsworth as a hint, but no dice. Eventually we got it, but it was painful. Last bug gripe: please setup the bug for your speed. Not only is it hard to copy when you're sending at 15 wpm but your dits are 30 wpm, but I hear a lot of people sending just whatever number of dits, especially in numbers. So 6 sounds like DAAAAAHHHHdididididididididit.

This is great, Evan! Thank you for this. I'm a new CW operator only hunting POTA right now but I really learned a lot from this video. Keep them coming! W1RCY

Welcome to the first meeting of CW LIDS Anonymous my name is Bill. I have been making CW POTA contacts whilst being functionally illiterate and I thought I could get away with it during the Thirteen Colonies event. Nope! and I should not have been trying. I realized this after the first attempt, and When I complained about the speeds being used by ops in a POTA discord. I received the same bad advice repeatedly that led me to making POTA contacts with the bare amount of ability to copy. I realized that not only was it bad advice, I knew it was from the start, and I was now the LID in the equation. YA GOTTA PUT THE WORK IN. Sending practice is much more fun than copy practice but they are two different skills you must learn. Back to carousel one¡

"Send your callsign once unless asked to" is something a lot of POTA hunters need to learn. They do it so their callsign sticks out at the end of the pileup and I always work someone else if I can.

Outstanding, Evan! Everyone should watch this. Great video.

Thanks, much needed. As a new OP just finished my first 13 colonies, QRP. The frustration is real when you're trying to be patient with low power and some guy bombs in at the end of the pileup with his call 2x and gets worked. Nevertheless I got all of them except GB it was a learning experience

Great refresher, Evan. And make sure when you know you need to work split, you actually enable "Split" on your rig, lol! 🤣

You made some excellent points and your document should help. I can say it’s easy to excited and jump on the contact. One of the toughest things is finding the end of his transmission. Those of us still trying to get faster cannot yet and we must keep trying to make contact.

I love using tx rx clarifier for split on the dx10. I follow the pile with rx on and punch tx when I hear Tu. Works very well.

Great info Evan. Hope to catch up to you in intermediate soon.

Great Omega showing!

Famous obnoxious OM move (when you know they can send much faster) - Cranking the power to 1K and slowing their speed down to around 12-14 wpm simply to smother the pileup with an S9++++ signal with a "long send" in order t get the op to work them first. Gotta be one of the most annoying a-hole moves.

In America, we pronounce Z as zee or zulu. Leave the zed business to the Australians.