The recent traffic on radio vs. spouses prompts me to suggest the following:
With the contest season starting up, perhaps we need a new performance metric -
the Contest Excuse Quotient, to be included in all contest score listings:
You get 1 point per minute lost due to a reparable equipment problem during
the contest. Irreparable problems are 100 points if there is a redundant item
available, else 250 points.
Tower climbing counts 3 points per foot (US only) within 6 hours of contest
start and 5 points per foot during the contest. Outside the US it is 10 and
15
points per meter. Per metre in the UK.
You get 100 points for being married and another 100 if your spouse is in
town on a contest weekend. If you or your spouse delivers a baby during the
contest, count 500 points. Kids under 12 are worth 50 points each for
existence and presence. Teenagers are worthless.
Cold: 100 points per sinus blocked throughout the contest plus 100 points
per box of tissue. Flu: 100 points per degree F over normal (200 points
per degree C). Broken bone: 200 points except in sending hand which counts
400 points or off-hand 300 points (for computer loggers only).
Doctor visits 500 points if your return before end of contest, 1000 points
if hospitalized. Life-threatening illness contracted and diagnosed during
contest or 3 days prior, 3000 points (doctor's affidavit required).
Power failure during contest: 10 points per hour (100 points per hour in
NA Sprint). Line noise: 2 points per dB over noise floor per hour (20/hour
in Sprint).
New RFI complaints: 1 point per dollar of threatened lawsuit. Complaints
that don't threaten suit or from previously encountered pre-litigants don't
count.
Bad conditions count 10 points per dB below normal of the average of all the
14.100 beacon stations iff they hurt you more than your buddy because of the
nature of your equipment, antennas, operating style or habits of personal
hygiene.
100 point bonus if you travelled at least 1000 miles away from home during
the 3
days prior to the contest or if you worked (at your job) more than 80 hours in
the prior week.
Each doorbell or telephone call you respond to during the contest is 5 points
unless it is an RFI complaint which is covered under separate rule above. ...
Contest Excuse Quotients (XQs) are used as follows:
Adjusted Gross Score = Raw Score * (1 + XQ/1000)
All score listings in the magazines are by AGS. Raw Score may be reported if
space permits and there is lots of advertising in the current issue. Contest
sponsors are encouraged to establish categories such as Single Operator/No
Excuse, Multi Operator/Mega Excuses, etc. Top XQ boxes will be published in
the sponsoring journals. NCJ can sponsor an annual Max Cumulative Excuses
award. CT, NA and TR will require modification to track Real-Time Excuse
Accumultion and to calculate and display AGS.
We will need the following new Q Signals:
QXQ? "What is your excuse?"
QXQ nnnn "My excuse quotient is nnnn."
QXQ 0 "No excuse, Sir."
So, what's your excuse?
73,
/Rick N6XI
>From barry@w2up.wells.com (Barry Kutner) Sun Sep 11 23:10:25 1994
From: barry@w2up.wells.com (Barry Kutner) (Barry Kutner)
Subject: UV degradation and plastics
Message-ID: <3BBisc1w165w@w2up.wells.com>
Just thought I'd pass along my experience with a few plastic boxes I've
used outdoors to keep connectors relatively dry (in addition to the usual
methods).
Tupperware becomes brittle and cracks in one season!
Johnson & Johnson Baby wipes container looks as good as new after 3
years! This container is marked on the bottom with the number 2 inside
the little triangle (here we recycle nrs 1 thru 5), and also HDPE, which
I presume is the abbreviation of the chemical name.
73 Barry
--
Barry N. Kutner, W2UP Usenet/Internet: barry@w2up.wells.com
Newtown, PA Packet Radio: W2UP @ WB3JOE.#EPA.PA.USA.NA
Packet Cluster: W2UP >K2TW (FRC)
.......................................................................
>From peterj@netcom.com (Peter Jennings) Mon Sep 12 00:44:30 1994
From: peterj@netcom.com (Peter Jennings) (Peter Jennings)
Subject: QRM Eliminator
Message-ID: <199409112344.QAA03849@netcom13.netcom.com>
>
> Can anyone tell me where to get some information on the S.E.M.
> QRM Eliminator-MarkII that was reviewed in the PVRC Newsletter
> by Fred, K3ZO? It apparently uses an auxillary noise antenna and
> can phase out locally generated noise at the rcvr input.
>
It is sold by SEM
8 Fort William
Head Road
Douglas
Isle of Man
U.K.
Phone: +44 624 662131 (dial 011 first from North America)
The current price is ?98.50 (that's UK pounds if your characters vary).
Peter
-- peterj@netcom.com
FTP: ftp.netcom.com:/pub/VE3SUN
MagicKey Help TSR - Beam - DTMF - Ham utilities - Stereograms
WWW: ftp://ftp.netcom.com:/pub/VE3SUN/www/home.html
Ham FTP sites - mailing lists - stereograms - 500+ hot URLs
>From oo7@astro.as.utexas.edu (Derek Wills) Sun Sep 11 20:15:32 1994
From: oo7@astro.as.utexas.edu (Derek Wills) (Derek Wills)
Subject: the /125 thing
Message-ID: <9409120015.AA17909@astro.as.utexas.edu>
Dunno whether many of the folks here paid much attention to the
ARRL /125 thing, but I thought it was quite revealing. Some of
the officials associated with emergency coordination sure don't
have much idea of how to handle a pile-up, and I wonder how useful
they are directing emergency nets on HF or getting emergency
traffic through under poor conditions. I also heard an Official
Observer who should have sent himself an OO notice for the quality
of his audio.
I thought the best ops were, on average, the DX Field Reps - they
have all worked 300+ countries and know something about pile-ups
and weak signals, although some of them were obviously unused to
being on the hot end of a pile-up.
The whole thing convinced me even more that when the chips are down
and conditions are rough, the best person to have on the other end
is a DXer or contester. Of course, I should really post this in a
non-contesting group where contesters are continually being vilified
for trashing the bands during contests - in fact, of course, we are
practising for emergency work. I'd rather have KR0Y et al on the
other end than some of these well-meaning wannabe policemen who are
involved in the emergency services. OK, I'm sure some of them are
very competent etc (and other phrases to deflect libel suits...).
Derek AA5BT, G3NMX
oo7@astro.as.utexas.edu
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