I was pretty much contest overdosed after a M/M effort
at W0GJ during CQWWSSB and then a CW SS that turned out to
be a 24 hour Sprint. I was looking for an easier SSB SS
weekend, so when I saw VY1JA's invitation on the reflector,
I had a seat held for me on a Regina-Vancouver-Whitehorse
flight, but when I got hold of Jay later in the day, he
told me K6LA had called first and got the nod. OK, well then
I'll just be Sunday "fresh meat" and get on at 2200Z to pass
out the North Dakota multiplier. ( When I've done this in the
past the pileup becomes ballistic after about 10 minutes,
which can be FUN !)
Anyway, for some reason, it dawned on me that if I wasn't
going to use the station, maybe someone else could have a good
time with it. With just 4 days to go, no sense putting a post
on the reflector, no one could afford a ticket to Minot w/o
a 14 day advance.( I live 90 miles from Minot). In the past, I
had exchanged E-mails with Pat, KB0O, ex KB0IHM, who usually
operates from W0HSC at North Dakota State. I invited him up,
he drove the 250 miles, and I'm sure he had an eye-opening
experience. First time high power, almost his first SSB test,
he operated with a frequency allocation chart next to the
keyboard cuz he didn't know the phone subbands! And he still
zipped off 1763 Q's and a Sweep.
The point of this post is that there are a lot of big
stations sitting out there unused during some contests. There
also are a lot of very enthusiastic young contesters out there
that always turn in 200-600 Q efforts with their A3's and wires.
I think it's great to see K1TTT, W3LPL, K4OJ and VY1JA putting
open invitations on the reflector to come on over. Remember,
the average 22 year old college kid contester isn't going to
approach the Big Gun and ask to operate. To encourage growth in
our "sport" maybe more of us should be putting posts on this
reflector looking for operators. When you let a younger contester
run 150/hr in SS for the first time it just might be addicting!!
73 BILL WB0O in North Dakota
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