Re: Contests that are really WAEs for East Coasters
In Maryland we have limited fishing for Rockfish (striped bass) since we
began to fear that they might go extinct. While fishing for rockfish was
enjoyed up and down the east coast, MD took the lead in trying to preserve
(perserve?) this species.
I am beginning to fear that another species may go extinct, due to the
secondary effects of the Whinus Equalus disease - namely contesters west
of the Mississippi.
In order to preserve this relatively rare but amazingly persistent species,
I am proposing that East Coast contesters observe the following voluntary
restrictions:
When running Europeans:
1. Ask every station that responds to your CQ to repeat his call phonetically
and to describe his favorite recipe.
2. Provide each station worked with the run frequency of a station west of
the Mississippi.
When running JAs:
1. After every second QSO, stop to complain about how much easier it is
for Left Coasters to work this unending well of QSOs and prefixes. This
should reduce your rate enough to provide relief for Western Contesters.
2. Ignore all Europeans that call off the back of your beam. For those that
persist, explain the inequity of your ability to work scads of EU, and
suggest that try to work as many 6,7, and 0 land stations as possible.
Miscellaneous:
1. In WPX, only operate 30 of the 36 hours, taking your off-time during the
EU openings. If your score is *still* higher than that of the 6/7/0 species,
don't send in your log.
2. In SS, operate as many hours as possible as hard as you can - learn to
empathize about busting your butt in an unwinnable contest. If you have been
doing that quietly for years anyway - be more vocal about it.
3. For Sprints, and any other domestic contest, east coasters should see 2
above.
If East Coast Contesters were to observe these voluntary restriction, we may
be able to revive the endangered Left Coast species. If not enough contesters
observe these restrictions, we may need to have more drastic, involuntary
measures:
1. Forced relocation of OH2BH to Japan.
2. Bring back country QSO quotas.
3. Make contacts with amateurs in states that begin with M, P, or New worth
only 2 points to Europeans.
4. Move the ARRL and CQ publishing to Visalia.
Perhaps at the next East Coast Contesters dinner at Dayton we can debate
these conservation measures.
John WB2EKK
pescatore_jt@ncsd.gte.com
>From k2mm@MasPar.COM (John Zapisek) Wed Dec 29 19:32:40 1993
From: k2mm@MasPar.COM (John Zapisek) (John Zapisek)
Subject: W5XD Updates Wlogview
Message-ID: <9312291932.AA19641@greylock.local>
Wayne: Got your WLOGVIEW update OK. I've updated the FTP-able files.
> [Wayne/W5XD] John, It has been pointed out to me that my Windows bin file
> viewer reports the QSO times off by 2 hours. I have a fix.
To download WLOGVIEW, connect to server "maspar.maspar.com" (192.84.231.1)
and CD to directory "pub/k2mm/wlogview". There you'll find these files:
wlogview.zip 78093 bytes -- PKZIP'ed archive
wlogview.exe 215552 bytes -- UNZIP'ed version
template.wk1 1273 bytes -- UNZIP'ed version
>From Skelton, Tom" <TSkelton@engineer.clemsonsc.NCR.COM Wed Dec 29 22:34:00
>1993
From: Skelton, Tom" <TSkelton@engineer.clemsonsc.NCR.COM (Skelton, Tom)
Subject: UA0 Siberian zone 18?
Message-ID: <2D2205E2@admin.ClemsonSC.NCR.COM>
Can someone please confirm and/or correct that the following
UA0 suffix starting letters indicate zone 18: (ie, UA0Axx)
A, B, H, O, S, U and W. Of course UA0Y is zone 23, and CT
tells me the remaining are zone 19 (UA0Cxx, UA0Dxx, etc.).
Thanks! 73, Tom WB4IUX
Tom.Skelton@ClemsonSC.NCR.COM
>From oo7@astro.as.utexas.edu (Derek Wills) Wed Dec 29 20:07:07 1993
From: oo7@astro.as.utexas.edu (Derek Wills) (Derek Wills)
Subject: UA0 Siberian zone 18?
Message-ID: <9312292007.AA08336@astro.as.utexas.edu>
WB4IUX asks:
Can someone please confirm and/or correct that the following
UA0 suffix starting letters indicate zone 18: (ie, UA0Axx)
A, B, H, O, S, U and W.
The WAZ rules from CQ Mag, which everyone should get if they are
interested in WAZ, says all the above, plus T and V, are in #18.
I don't think the WAZ boundaries have changed for many years now.
Derek AA5BT
>From alan@dsd.es.com (Alan Brubaker) Wed Dec 29 20:48:14 1993
From: alan@dsd.es.com (Alan Brubaker) (Alan Brubaker)
Subject: Making Things Easier for the Left Coast
Message-ID: <9312292048.AA07592@dsd.ES.COM>
No news here, John. Most of us out here who have been at this for awhile and
have not yet given up in disgust realize that in the major DX contests there
is just no chance (except in a few rare instances) that any of us would be
able to "win". Most of us know that the big east coast stations are just
unbeatable, period. Most of us realize that if we are going to compete with
anyone, it is going to be someone across town, or maybe in the next state.
One of the things that we do not get to enjoy out here is running Europeans
for hours on 80 or 160. We may as well be in a different country, but we are
not - yet, anyway. Two or three time zones and thousands of miles is far from
a "level playing field" and you cannot change the laws of physics and the lay
of the land. Personally, when I get into one of these things with my modest
station, my expectations of "winning" are very low. Why do I bother? Well, to
some degree I still find it enjoyable, and occasionally I crack a pileup on an
especially juicy multiplier, not because of brute force necessarily, but maybe
because I was lucky enough to find that station at the peak of our short
window of opportunity for that particular path. Now and then, if I work
especially hard, I will even just get into the top ten or win a certificate.
I believe that there is more to contesting than just winning, although it is
fun to win something once in a while. Those of us out here, and the long
suffering guys up in the black hole keep getting beaten, year after year, but
for some reason, we keep coming back. To summarize, as Jim Neiger put it so
well, "...if you don't like your QTH - MOVE!". He is correct, of course.
Happy New Year to all.
Alan, K6XO
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