DXing Ethics and RR73

This winter I called a rare DXpedition on 160 meters FT8. I don't normally do this and I had already worked them on CW. It was purely opportunistic since I was there, I heard them and I had the time. I flipped on the amplifier (they were very weak) and went at it.

After several minutes of calling I received a signal report from them. I replied with the usual FT8 R-nn message. I resent it many times since I did not copy RR73 from them. Indeed perhaps no more than 10% to 20% of their messages were strong enough to be decoded. I did not yet have a Beverage antenna for their direction so I was manually switching between my 160 meter antenna (transmit) and 40 meter yagi (receive) which had a better SNR than the vertical.

I never did decode an RR73 message for our QSO. The few messages successfully decoded were directed at other stations. Eventually I gave up. There are several scenarios in which an FT8 QSO is deemed to be complete but this isn't one of them. At a minimum each station should copy a reception confirmed message and I didn't have one from them.

When I later searched their online log there I was in their log with an FT8 QSO on 160 meters. Apparently they did receive my R-nn message and responded with an RR73 that I failed to copy. For all I know they sent RR73 more than once in reply to my repeated R-nn messages. I'll never know.

My personal ethics on the matter are clear: this was not a valid QSO and I did not claim it. Not everyone agrees. I know people who believe that all I need to do is create and upload the QSO record with an estimated time. LoTW (Logbook of the World) and other QSO matching services have what I consider an overly generous latitude for timestamps. I knew this and deliberately did not note the time since the QSO was not valid.

Despite my passion for DXing the claiming of a rare country in this circumstance repels me. As I noted, there are others who would disagree. For many the DXCC "counter" is justification enough for bending the criteria for what is considered a valid QSO, especially when the DXpedition logged the QSO.

Indeed this is an inherent flaw of the RR73 message since it signals that the QSO is being logged by the sender with the expectation that the message is received and successfully decoded. That is never certain. In this respect FT8 and similar digital modes rely on the good faith of the operators.

Similar circumstances can occur on SSB, CW and RTTY but have historically been less controversial. FT8 brings the matter into stark relief because there is no muddy middle: RR73 is copied or it is not. There is no room for operator judgment.

That sums up my attitude toward digital DXing. I am not personally satisfied with a QSO that does not fulfill the minimum requirements. I take no pleasure in claiming a QSO that I deem invalid.