This has been a very interesting thread.
I'm the father of 3, 17, 15, and 12. My two sons ( 17 and 15) are both
"interested" in amateur radio. It's in quotes because they are interested
when I ask if they are, and they kind of randomly make progress towards a
license. The 15 yr old is a gamer, and one thing strikes me that I haven't
seen mentioned yet. When he plays, he plays against people playing the
same game with the same equipment, whether a PS-4 or something else. Not
the case in a ham radio contest. Mike (W0MU) described his station as
nothing special, but I would kill for a tower of any kind -- the XYL
forbids it. That doesn't stop me, I still get on and play and occasionally
win a certificate for ONS low power SSB etc. I also go really far north
and operate VY0ERC, but again, a minimal station - albeit for different
reasons. Either place, it is always a much different operating experience
for a 100 W into a vertical than it is for 1500W into a stack. When I
describe that to my sons, they get that puzzled look of, er, what's the
point of competing against that?
To segue slightly into a parallel thread on packets/spotting. I'm not loud
and I rarely get spotted. I can CQ for an hour and work 10-20 people and
not get spotted. There are guys like VE3EJ not far away, who is likely
very loud, and I'll see him get spotted all the time. Surely one of those
10-20 is working assisted and I would have thought that working us little
pistols was advantageous once you've worked all the big guns?
Either way, I'll be on for the next one ... and the one after that ... and
...
73,
Pierre VE3KTB
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