Well, I had an interesting experience last night. I had a taste of what the
non-contesters have been complaining about.
I was trying to answer a CQ from ER1DA on 80 CW, around about 0600 Z, when I
suddenly was called by about 6 - 10 US stations (I guess they were in the
NAQP? I wasn't participating in the contest, so I don't know). Honest
mistake, I figured at first, so I explicitly sent "ER1DA de WN3VAW" & "NOT
IN TEST" several times.
2 or 3 stations -- no, I didn't copy down the calls -- would not give up
until I finally quit transmitting for a few minutes. Of course by that
time, ER1DA (who was being wiped out by the other signals) was long gone.
And since Europe was coming in 579 to 599+20 at that point (it was a great
opening otherwise), I had a good shot at him.
Now my point isn't to pick on the contest ops per se... I'm SURE it was
simply the heat of the moment. At least at first. But when the
non-contester is making it CLEAR that he is trying to work someone else, to
keep calling & calling & calling to the point of breaking up the QSO and
torquing off one or both of the non-contest ops is excessive and potentially
poor operating.
So the next time I read (on eHam or elsewhere) someone complaining about
contesters... well, I'll have a little more empathy. And I'm going to watch
my own operating habits in contests better in the future, as I don't want to
accidently do to someone else what happened to me last night.
73, ron wn3vaw
"Doc? You built a time machine... out of a DeLorean?"
"The way I look at it, if you're going to build a time machine out of a car,
you might as well do it with style!"
-- Marty McFly & Dr. Emmet Brown, "Back to the Future"
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