Charly (and other non-EU stations), I can appreciate your concerns about the Europe-centric focus of some stations during contests. Being on the West Coast of the US, Europe is often not "in range" f
I agree with Tor - I don't know that "young people aren't interested in contesting", but rather that new hams in general probably are intimidated by a "contest" when they are unfamiliar with so many
At the risk of belaboring the point, I had a few thoughts when reading the post on this thread, but felt like I wanted to say my piece. My disclaimer is that I've operated many contests over the year
Guys, To quote Mike W7VO, "You bring up a great point, Ken! I had never thought of it that way, and you are right. The only way an unassisted station can say he is truly unassisted is to not be spott
This is hugely helpful. I've been contesting a long time, and never paid much attention to being spotted (I just assumed it happened when someone liked your call or took pity on you). This past weeke
Frank, I was basing my perceived loneliness on the N1MM+ logger info window that pops up each spot of my station. I presume it's based on the DX cluster that I selected for use during the contest, wh
Since the exchange is zones, why not make "DX" a contact between different zones or countries? It doesn't completely level the playing field, but at least the US, Asia and Russia can work geographica
I am not a psychologist, but engage in both contesting and DXing fairly seriously at times. I have often tried to explain to family and friends why both activities are something that I love to do, in
I heard at least one station asking stations he worked (including me) to "PLEASE SPOT ME" during yesterday's NAQP RTTY. I wonder if he's already been DQ'd. I imagine he didn't know this was a no-no,
For those of you complaining about the "73" power report, I have to say "really?". The rules say that the DX exchange is (emphasis mine), " DX stations send signal report and power (number or abbrevi
Jim, Or 1 milliwatt! Can you imagine the confusion with "0.001" or "1 MW"? With no capitalization in CW, it might be interpreted as 1,000,000 W, and then everyone on the reflector would be screaming
So, if I want to get WX1XXX disqualified, I can just spot him a whole bunch of times? Seems like a bad way to go. And, before you say that I will also be DQ'd, I can do it from my phone, my local lib
I agree with the part about it being easier to find open spots on the bandmap to run. Its also a function of having panadapters that let you just point and click to the empty spots. However, there wa
I don't normally get into these rule change discussions, because there are N + 10 opinions for every N hams, but it dawned on me that one or more of the following are fairly easy to implement, might
Tor - I think we do need the time restrictions, because the idea is to "force" everyone to stick around until at least partway through Sunday afternoon to get a higher score. I'm way down in the lowe
I empathize with you, Bill. I am very familiar with the situation you have, because in many VHF contests, 6 Meters is wide open from the Rockies or Mississippi River and east, but completely dead on
Ward and Group, As a casual contester, I haven't really felt like I had much to offer regarding spurring participation and recruiting new contesters. However, lately, one of my 16 year-old daughters
Tom, Many thanks for taking the time to write. I agree I have shown my kids and their friends how much fun playing radio is for me. They are actually very impressed with my tower and giant SteppIR, a
All, I feel like I am fighting the same battle on alternate fronts here. It's either "FT8 isn't real radio and shouldn't be allowed" or "No one needs to run 1500 W to work DX". The common thread is t
Fellow Contesters, A few of us (KL0R, KL7SB, me, and a few of our cronies) have set up a DMR Talkgroup (30121 on Brandmeister) to discuss all aspects of contesting and to provide a forum for assistin