NAQP Contesting Bleg

The CW portion of the North American QSO Party (NAQP) happened this past weekend.  I'm not really a contester, but I will be happy to generally jump into the contesting fray so I can work a few new stations or try my hand at some different modes.

The object of the NAQP, of course, is to work as many stations as possible using CW on a range of bands over a given time period.  There are multipliers for the states and provinces, etc.  Normal amateur radio contesting stuff.  But what constitutes a contact?  Well, two way communications between stations that manage to exchange some given information with each other.  For North American stations in the NAQP, that basically meant I had to send my name and state.  Easy enough.

But I guess that people have a tough time understanding my name in CW.

My name is Nate.  Or, Dah-dit---di-dah---dah---dit.

That sounds remarkably like "NAME" in CW.  Dah-dit---di-dah---dah-DAH---dit.

The extra DAH added for emphasis.  One little CW sound is enough to confuse the living $%#@ out of about 80% of the other operators.  It led to a lot of "Who's on First?" moments.

Ultimately I had to settle on sending, "name es nate," which was still enough to confuse people.

Maybe I should just pick another name.  Like Jebediah or something.  Di-dah-dah-dah---dit---dah-di-di-dit---dit---dah-di-dit---di-dit---di-dah---di-di-di-dit.

Ok.  Bleg is over.

The Phone portion should be easier.  November-Alpha-Tango-Echo.