I care a lot, Jim, but I don't know what to do about it. Forty years
ago, growing up on the East Coast, I was always hearing about "those
California Kilowatts <wink>." There was also a lot of rubber clocking
and other illegal and quasi-legal stuff going on that was at least
tolerated if not passively encouraged. "Everyone does it" seemed to be
the order of the day. But somehow, the ethical climate in US radiosport
has changed. By the time I got to California myself, circa 1977, I found
no big amps at the contest stations where I visited and guest-operated.
In fact, some of the largest stations were downright religious about
following the letter of the law and remain so to this day. Maybe I've
led a sheltered life, but I think the level of cheating is way down, at
least in the US, and is probably not much of a factor in the results.
Maybe some day this spirit of good sportsmanship will prevail worldwide.
In the meantime, we will just have to chuckle or grumble, whichever
suits us, when an S9 southern European station can't hear us at all when
we are running 1500w to a good monobander.
73,
/Rick N6XI
James Neiger wrote:
The blatant and illegal use of super high power in contests.
Is it happening? You bet it is. Some who do are even seemingly very proud of
the fact (when I was in Slovenia for WRTC2000, one very well known European
operator came up to me and bragged that most everyone who is competitive in
his area were running Henry 8K's).
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