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Hello!
You've probably arrived here from my QRZ page, and if so, welcome! FAST QSO is just a way for anyone to request brief contacts, sans contest. More info below. Happy QSOing! 73 ES 77 DE ARMEN W6ADL FormatRST, QTH, NAME Here is an example FAST QSO with myself and my friend Guny KK7DEU: CQ CQ CQ FAST QSO CQ CQ CQ FAST QSO CQ DE W6ADL W6ADL K KK7DEU K KK7DEU TU UR 5NN 5NN IN CA CA NAME NAME ARMEN ARMEN BK TU UR 5NN 5NN IN OR OR NAME NAME GUNY GUNY BK TU GUNY MY BEST 73 ES 77 K EE *Note that QTH is sent as State/Province Abbreviation. Or, if DX, the 2-letter Country Code. FAQWhy does this exist?The short answer:
The long answer:The existing CW culture is primarily split into two factions: the RAGCHEWERS and the CONTESTERS.When people call CQ typically, it is understood that one is looking to talk for at least a slightly extended period of time. This is great! I love ragchewing and have had many great QSOs doing so! For one reason or another, I think within many of us ragchewers is the occasional urge to just rack up a bunch of QSOs in a blitz style. This could be for the pure fun of it, or maybe (if you're like me) you are a big fan of Geography and you like to fill out a map. Whatever the case is, I think that this could fill a niche within the CW culture. Ideally, the more people that try this experiment out the more contacts we can all make and the more we can get on the air! Why not just participate in a contest?You absolutely could, don't get me wrong. Having specific, scheduled contests has its many benefits!The beauty in this FAST QSO experiment is that it tries to make the contest-style QSO exchange available at all times: not beholden to a schedule. At any point, anyone can invoke a FAST QSO activation! Is FAST QSO open for anyone?Definitely. Please do email me atFASTQSO a.t. PROTON d.o.t. ME if you give it a try!HistoryIf we just did it normally, we wouldn't really be doing a good job of racking up those QSOs. This is because the people who would respond to us wouldn't know to engage in a quick contact. This led me to thinking about ways we could call CQ to instantly communicate our intentions to those listening in. I first tried CQ LC for "Lone Contester" but it was a huge flop. No one responded after several days, so that idea was scrapped. Maybe people thought I was trying to get a QSO from St. Lucia! Whatever the case was, people really didn't understand what CQ LC meant, and therein lied the fault. I gave my other friend Keith W6KME a call, and he suggested the idea to use CQ FAST QSO since it would (at least to a sizable enough chunk of listeners) give a good enough idea as to what I was requesting. Sure, not everyone would really understand it (understandably), but FAST QSO is surely more helpful a method than CQ LC. I began this experiment on 30 Sept 2022, and in the first week I was able to rack up 25 FAST QSOs! This was enough for me to want to pursue the idea more. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |