DX Pet Peeve, or Displaying My Ignorance?

OK, I'm angry. I don't have a right to be, I'll admit it. I should be more patient, but it's very late and I want to go to bed. But I can't until I work this rare DX station that I've been listening to for the last two hours and a half. He's made about 10 contacts in this time period! I know he hears me -- he's running 100 watts into a 3-element beam antenna with a motorized rotor (he tells each contact this information -- what kind of rotor isn't motorized?). They also find out what kind of radio he's using. I'm amazed that he didn't go into a diatribe about what color of feedline he's using and how easily it rolls up and that he's not telling his contacts what he had for breakfast two weeks ago! He gives in miles his distance from blah blah blah (he's rare DX, anyone who's not an idiot KNOWS where he is!).

Then, strangely enough, he gives the mailing address where he's on VACATION for QSLing! He's leaving to go back stateside (so he says) in a couple of days, and won't even be there when his QSL cards come in! What is the purpose of giving the DX address where you're on vacation? I suppose that his cards are going to show up at the bungalow owner's home and then he'll have to forward them to the guy's stateside address -- long delays and needless extra postage.

He goes into the spelling of where he is with each contact, He also knows what radio and antenna each person he contacts is using because he asks each one and then repeats it back to them after he finds out! He then obtains their address and double-checks that he got the zip code and street spelling on every contact. Then he repeats all received information (radio, antenna, power, weather, etc.) received from his contact before going into his spiel about where he is, the weather, the physical attributes of the landmass he's on, etc. etc. ad nauseum. Then he ends each transmission with "OVER" so there's no way that you can tell when he's finished and waiting for another call!

Darn it- this guy is rare DX! He's in some rented bungalow on some island that I'll probably never get the chance to make contact with ever again! And he's taking forever with spelling common information in each contact that can EASILY be obtained in any callbook (printed OR internet)!

So I pull out all the stops trying to get him to hear me in between his 10-minute L-O-N-G contacts. I started out with 100 watts, but he didn't hear me returning his call. I increased power to 500 watts and he still didn't hear me. I went to 1500 watts, still nada. I'm using a decent tri-band beam at a decent height. There's no way he's not hearing me! I guess there is the possibility of one-way propagation, but then he hears a station only 100 miles south of me! Darn it -- he's IGNORING me! I stayed up late, stressing my level of patience caused by his long-windedness only to be ignored?

When I was operating as a DX station on vacation in Asia several years ago, I thought I was doing the right thing when I "ran 'em fast" like on Field Day. I would -NEVER- have made stateside stations wait 10 minutes in between tries for a contact with my rare DX location!!! I like a good old-fashioned rag chew as well as the next fellow, but my conscience would never allow me to rag-chew when I knew that I was rare DX and there was a line of people waiting to make contact with me!

This guy made some contacts that seemed to egg on his blab-mania causing him to ramble on forever about every form of minutia which made each QSO stretch on needlessly while the masses waited for a "hole" in the contacts to throw out their call.

I'm too upstanding of a person to QRM the guy with tune-ups to see if he really can't hear me or if he's purposefully ignoring me -- that's such a jerky thing to do. But someone else must have felt the same level of frustration I did, because they began to heterodyne his signal with intentional tune-up interference. You could tell it was intentional because it would happen every time the DX station talked.

OK already -- I have no right to intrude into this guy's ultimate vacation and tell him how to run his contacts. I just need a shoulder to cry on while I pull the big switch and go to bed because it's getting much too late, so I must miss this contact I've stayed up so late for because the DX station's mouth has become as the Energizer Bunny! It keeps on going, and going, and going...

Sign me -- WHINER!

(Yes, OK, I deserve every negative comment I get!)

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