Our greatest difficulty in getting messages through is because the other fellow is not “on." Most of the stalling of messages is due to this one thing. What we must do is to have regularly established and definite times at which we will be on duty. Then if a man in Northampton has a message going West and he knows just when the station at Buffalo or Waynesfield or Kane, for example, is working he can work with some hope. As it is, he tries at any old hour and unless the other man is a regular night hawk and sits up half the night every night in the week, he misses him.
To make it better, it is suggested that every station send out a QST followed by a QRU with his town or city at a definite hour every evening. This will indicate that this station is ready for anything coming his way.
An example of what the plan is may be taken from the way we have begun to work it at headquarters. Between 8:45 and 9:15 p. m. every night, one of the Hartford stations sends out the following at full power:
QST QST QST de IZT ― . . . ― QRU Hartford ? QRU Hartford ? QRU Hartford ? de IZT . ― .― .― .―
This makes it known that Hartford, Connecticut, is ready to receive any messages for or via it. If all other cities would agree among themselves to carry out this same plan, it would help get messages through without a doubt.
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