A CWT trouble

A friend of mine, Bob W7AYN, has encountered an embarrassing situation last Wednesday. I happened to listen to him at that time. He was working a W8 guy on around 7026KHz. All of sudden, another pretty big one started calling CQ CWT right on his frequency. Bob had to quickly finish that QSO then. I don't believe the CQ caller could not hear either of Bob or that W8 guy. I have ever experienced this due to those contesters in the past. I am running 500W with 3el. Hearing this mess, I sighed and thought the same thing had happened again.

In a day, Bob wrote to me on this event. He seemed to have sent a mail to blame them to a CWops head. It seemed that guy had delivered that personal mail itself to the CWops members through their reflector. Bob's mail seemed to contain my call. A few friends told me about that. Even though I am not directly involved in this event, I may have a right to express my opinion on this issue here owing to the above mentioned course of the event.

It might be essentially a problem of negotiation and compromise between the contesters and the non contesters as for how to avoid such interference to the latter by the former. In the major contests like WW CW etc, we, non contesters, could escape from the mess. Because the schedules are well known. It is not the case with minor ones. It is difficult for us to escape somewhere prior to such minor ones as CWT starting.

CWT should have been held in the week ends like the others. So far as international contests are concerned, it is the first contest ever held on "a plain week day". It is held once a month. There are increasing number of contests being held right now. I am afraid CWT might lead them to be held on the plain week day since the week ends are already full of contests for now.

CWT is divided into 3 sessions with only an hour of duration for each session. The trouble is apt to occur in the very beginning of the contest. Non contesters are not ready to avoid the mess especially in the beginning. The chances of the mess is up to 3 times in a CWT event. All these factors are causing the mess as Bob has experienced this time.

I would propose them to limit the band width in use to its certain portion, for example, from 7010 to 7020KHz etc. And it should move from the week day to a week end. I sincerely hope they won't mess the bands with such games on any plain week day even for 3 times in a day, when we could enjoy slow and meaningful QSOs.

Lastly, a personal whispering. There are "too many" contests. "Redundant" activity. I suspect it will all the more decrease the non contest activities. Eventually, it may harm the ordinary ham radio activities.