My QTH is about 40 miles NE of Minneapolis/St. Paul in a region that was
settled by Scandinavian immigrants. This ethnic heritage even carries through
to the water tower in Lindstrom, MN which is the shape of a tea kettle. If
you're looking for a fire hydrant around here, you'd be looking for a blue and
yellow device (the national colors), not the traditional red water dispenser.
You may recall in September the annual Scandinavian Activity Contest is held on
the 2nd and 3rd weekends of the month. This year during the CW event terrible
WX rolled through my area and drove me off the air with high precipitation
static and later thunderstorms. It was a "wash"!
So I'm sitting in the shack, kinda bummed out over the situation, when I
decided to use the down time to write an article for the local Chisago County
Press. I tied the article to the Scandinavian heritage of this area and wrote a
lay-men article to let the community know about hundreds of their relatives in
"the old country" who were glued to their radios during these two weekends each
year.
Although this local newspaper has an internet site, they only put a selection
of the current stories online. My article was published in the printed issue
between the CW and Phone weekends. I never checked if it made the online
edition. If anyone wants a copy of my submission, I will be glad to forward a
copy.
73 de Bob - KØRC in MN
Message: 4
Date: Tue, 24 Oct 2006 16:27:10 +0200
From: DL8MBS <prickler.schneider@t-online.de>
Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] need resource for journalist
To: Derrick Belbas <ve4vv@shaw.ca>
Cc: cq-contest@contesting.com
Message-ID: <453E22BE.6030403@t-online.de>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
Hello Derrick,
as one from this strange writing profession may I ask, please don?t try
overload and overkill attacking him with specialities (as seen from
non-ham readers) like SO2R. Try to find out what the paper wants from
him (as long as he has already sold the story). When he still has to
sell the story he has to follow their wishes or preferences. First try
to help him as much as possible with the planned story. Having sacked
all the basics necessary for him he then will be open for things like
SO2R - and most likely anything natural for us will attract his
attention - maybe something simple like the emotion of a contesting
situation.
The only exception: he has "card blanche" for XYZ lines with whatever he
wants to write AND he is willing to follow your lines. But be prepared
that this is the exception.
As much as we like a story more on contesting than amateur radio in
general - the story can?t be written without a lot of amateur radio
basics. So be patient with this part, too.
All the best and good luck with your efforts.
73, Chris
(www.dl8mbs.de)
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