On Thursday, November 20, 1997 15:30 PM, owner-cq-contest@contesting.com wrote:
>I4JMY asks:
>>Where did it go the spirit of the "American Dream" ?
>>
>>....or does it include a foppish attitude to refuse any real competition
>>and to deal seriously ?
>>
>>The history I read about America and his pioneers, did report an opposite
>>nature of the American People, I thought it could be naturally applied to
>>ham-radio contesting too.
>>
>
>Mauri, in this day of "Political Correctness" and "Feely-Goody", it
>sometimes seems that the old "American spirit" has gone out the window. To
>wit:
>* When I started in ham radio in the 50's, nobody ever heard of "QRL?" or
>"Is the Frequency in Use?" We accepted QRM as a normal part of ham radio
>and lived with it. And we were proud of how four different QSOs could take
>place on the same frequency at the same time, showing that the ham radio
>operator was indeed a superior being who could economize spectrum use far
>better than any other radio service.
Maybe down on the General portion of the bands. We, up in the Novice
portion of the bands were restricted to crystal-controlled operation. How
many of us had a 7175 kc in our limited crystal inventory? It seemed we
were all digging the same crystals out of bins in similar military surplus
stores.
Our biggest breakthrough was the Hint&Kink that described how to grind
the crystals to change frequency a little bit. Grind to move up; pencil lead
the crystal to move down. It was enough.
Besides, I don't believe the use of "QRL?" or "is the frequency in use?" has
anything to do with political correctness. It was something my parents
taught me when I was very young (and we knew nothing at all about ham
radio) and that was: COURTESY. Just a simple act of courtesy. It works
in real life and it works in ham radio.
73,
But after a generation of
>crystal-clear channelized FM repeater operation everybody now wants to
>carry this over to HF by demanding a crystal-clear frequency 5 KHz. either
>side and if he doesn't get it, he shouts "frequency in use" no matter how
>far he has to move his dial to yell at the "offending" station.
>* We used to admire the W3MSK's, the W9EWC's and the K2GL's of the world
>for their accomplishments and just saved and lived for the day when we
>could emulate them. Now that some of us have managed to erect stations more
>or less in the same ballpark we find ourselves criticized for "just pushing
>F1 all day" while our moral superiors labor in the vineyards of S&P and
>look for a contest category in which they can excel by changing the rules
>instead of by doing it the old fashioned way.
>
>But, hey, it's still a lot of fun and there's still nothing else like it in
>the world.
Dale Martin, KG5U
kg5u@hal-pc.org
http://www.hal-pc.org/~kg5u
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