Well, thank you. You're bringing up another philosophical point about SS and
contesting in general, that I often think about, which is "the contest is never
over."
By that I mean, my theory is that at the end of SS CW 03 you are already making
your plans, laying the groundwork for, thinking about antenna improvements, off
time strategy changes, band change strategy, for next year. These things go
through your mind Sunday afternoon when you're CQing, the rate has fallen off
some, etc. When you work up your stat sheets as you go through SS, while it's
happening, hour by hour, and look back over it afterward, you are getting your
mind straight for the next time, looking at what went right and what went
wrong. You look at what your competitors did, and certainly this year in SS
phone I had two serious ones, KH6ND at WP2Z and KW8N at KP2A, and you can
impute some analysis of what they did and how they're likely to change the next
time, while it's all fresh in your mind.
You've raised another point of "the contest is never over," that you have to,
or may choose to, spend the next 11 months defending your performance. hihi.
Maybe it's essays, or just one-on-one conversations, etc. but it's a reality.
It's been 6 "contest years" now since 1998 SS CW, but I still often have the
opportunity to explain how K1TO beat me during the log checking that time.
Though I've mocked it perhaps, or questioned it, I have no doubt of the
importance of the "off-season" or between-contests "politics." If you act like
a jerk to the 99% of the "regular guys" when you see them at Dayton, they may
not go out of their way to make sure they give you a QSO next year. They
probably won't forget how you treated them and may even exercise their
prerogative to not give you a QSO next time.
Then there's the 11 months of work, particularly if you're operating from home,
putting up towers and antennas and inside station improvements, to improve your
odds the next time. It's a year-long continuum. At WP3R we have to do such
things in concentrated times when one or more of us is there not just to set up
and operate, but to make improvements and additions.
73 - Rich, KE3Q
----- Original Message -----
From: Felipe J. Hernandez
To: RICHARD BOYD ; cq-contest@contesting.com
Sent: Monday, November 24, 2003 2:10 PM
Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] NP4Z's SS comments etc.
Good posting..
You've scored well on your writing abilities...You even had to write an
essay :) Who said winning Sweeptakes from PR was easy?
73's
Felipe
----- Original Message -----
From: "RICHARD BOYD" <ke3q@msn.com>
To: <cq-contest@contesting.com>
Sent: Monday, November 24, 2003 2:02 PM
Subject: [CQ-Contest] NP4Z's SS comments etc.
Felipe, thanks for listening and thinking I was working for it in SS. I
would like to think that anybody who listens and/or is paying attention, not
just this year but over many years, can make some good judgments on "what's
what."
I agree it's good to see KV4FZ back, especially with a classic callsign like
that. I think Herb hasn't been paying very close attention to SS for some
years since he thought the two-mode win in what was it, 1970? by K7JA was
the only time that's happened. And, as you note, but to say it more
clearly, KP4 is almost always rarer in SS than is KP2. I have been told
that even Puerto Ricans go to the Virgin Islands if they want a beach
vacation. The beaches over there are nice and it's a real vacation spot.
And, English is the language there, so maybe that's the preferred place for
Anglos to go, either to retire and live or for contest vacations. Puerto
Rico is much, much larger, but for the non-Spanish speaker the language
"barrier," so-called, may be intimidating. There are many, many, many
licensed Puerto Rican hams but very, very few make contest QSOs. It's been
hard getting Puerto Rico in the log for a sweep every time I'm there.
Everybody can work me for the sweep but I can't work myself.
Tying back in to my first paragraph above, there are several factors I see
playing a part. First, there is a bit of a "generation gap" within
contesting, that some "naysayers" are more recently on the scene. I don't
hear much criticism coming from the guys my own age, who probably have a
better appreciation of the fact that I've been around a long, long time. I
guess my first SS was in about '66 and I've been in it every year since then
that it was humanly possible. I think some critics have a tendency to view
the world as if it started when they arrived on the scene, and they don't
have much appreciation of or interest in anything that happened before then.
I was a history major, which does accurately reflect that I am kind of at
the opposite end of that spectrum of world view.
Along with the supportive comments, you allude to something else that one
could, I could, view as an "illness" within our ranks, though we might agree
that it's a typical one amongst any group of people, in any group involved
in any competitive pasttime, etc. This is the factor of a relatively small
group of self-appointed "Sweepstakes elite," who issue pronouncements on
these things, mostly in private, as I suspect comments to you about me not
being a real SS op, were, quiet, behind the scenes, politicking for their
point of view that is designed to elevate their own accomplishments and
belittle others' accomplishments. You can also hear some of their attitude
come out in public, on the air and elsewhere, though generally not in
direct, on-the-record, statements. We all have an interest in cleaning up
our act and refusing to support these sorts of attitudes.
These guys tend to be in geographically favored areas, and though they
clearly are excellent operators, much of their success also directly relates
to their geographical advantage. Then add serious station hardware,
including domestic stacks or multiple domestic stacks. Most of the "also
rans" elsewhere in the country would love to have that kind of station to
work with, just like many would love to operate from KP4 or KP2. There's a
"chicken and egg" factor, that a good, and driven, operator will tend to arm
himself with as many advantages as he can, geographical,
enough-real-estate-to-build-a-serious-antenna-farm, the big antenna farm
itself, SO2R accessoried to a fare-thee-well, etc. These will produce big
scores, resulting in a reputation as a top operator. So, you can debate whe
ther a top operator gets all the tools he needs to succeed, or whether a guy
who gets the best tools to succeed ends up developing operator skills and
chalking up successes to match the station.
It's interesting to consider what these folks think a "real SS operator" is.
One might come to the conclusion that they define it as themselves and their
closest buddies. I'm not too bothered that that doesn't include me. Maybe
I should stir this kettle again, let's say, late October next year, because
I'm glad to represent "all the little guys," who are 99% of the SS operators
against the 1% elite who look down their noses at the rest of us. I'm
Hickory High School ("Hoosiers") representing the little guys -- so all you
little guys need to work me next November cuz I'm one of you! And I
appreciate that most of you already ARE working me. But if a hundred or two
of you haven't been getting on, maybe you'll remember this discussion 11
months from now and get on. hihi.
Anyway, I have a check of 65 and that means I've been around a while. And
I've been doing SS most of that time, and have had pretty good success, even
before going to Puerto Rico. At least to some extent it's my previous
success that got me the invitation to operate at WP3R. Even early in my
contesting career, the local contest gurus heard me on the air and I guess
liked what they heard because I started getting invitations to operate at
all the big multi-multis in my region since 1965 when I started.
Unfortunately for me, I didn't go, because I wanted to put my own callsign
on the air, pick up new countries in DX contests, and I was more of a
contest loner I guess. Also, I was in high school and college football and
basketball which were a big conflict with contests in the fall and winter,
so it was hard to get on a contest fulltime. I was in a lot of football and
basketball games, though, not at my best, because I was up most of the night
operating in a contest. But, I spent years operating low power with limited
antennas (made my own monobanders when I was about 14 but envied my buddy
whose dad was a ham so he had a Collins S-Line and commercial TH-3
tribander).
Making top 10 from the east coast is tough and whoever does it certainly is
an SS operator with SS skills. I did it once and was 11th once, by a QSO or
two as I recall. And, let's face it, cutting off the "who's who" at 10 is
arbitrary. Is K3LR a real SS op? Beat him once, though I think it might
have been K3UA operating. But, everyone in this area who knows K3UA knows
he's one of the very best ops in this region -- which make him one of the
very best ops in any region. Likewise K3MM, K3ZO, N2NC, N2NT. (My list is
skewed towards the Atlantic Division because these are the guys you have to
get by, if they're on, to get the Atlantic Division plaque, a tough one to
get). These guys all know me. They're all excellent ops. Put them at one
of the big SS stations in Texas, certainly toss in W5WMU, another serious SS
station, and they will probably all be in the top 10. Every year. Not to
overlook folks, there are more on the list of east coast serious guys --
certainly K5ZD/1 who made top 10 in SS CW this year, again. W4MYA, K2PLF,
KD4D, N4AF lots of east coast guys are A-1-100% "real Sweepstakes ops."
It's time we stood up to the sort of Sweepstakes snobbery that we hear year
in and year out, and those of us (myself included) who have been at it
longer need to instruct our younger SS hotshots, and others, in proper
behavior. If you're sick and tired of people cutting you off in traffic
then giving YOU the finger, stand up to the SS snobs! hihi.
Let me toss in another related topic. I have repeatedly heard contest
"authorities" (I want to leave it at that, but I mean it literally this
time, not sarcastically) comment or intimate that coming in second in a
contest to (fill in the blank) who often wins is like winning because (fill
in the blank) cheats and doesn't feel it's worth winning if you can't do it
by cheating. I know that top contest organization guys know the callsigns
I'm referring to. If this is the case, why these guys haven't been able to
be "disciplined" for their misdeeds, I don't know. Maybe it's that packet
spots just happening to coincide throughout a weekend with the callsign
going into the op's log is "circumstantial" and can't be proven beyond some
threshold the contest guys see. I don't know.
I raise this just to note, to those who aren't in either of these "loops,"
the 99% of you out there who aren't in the "elite," that there are various
undercurrents and back room hushed voice conversations that go on about the
"meaning" of someone winning from somewhere versus someone else winning, or
coming in second, etc. from somewhere else, like comments NP4Z has heard.
I'm not at the center of them all. This kind of back channel gripping and
grousing goes on and at some point I think we have to just kind of shrug our
shoulders and say, "yeah, okay" and move on from it. We have to each one
look at what our motivations are and our "return" is for our investment of
time, effort, and funds, and do our own thing.
Summarizing the "real SS operators" point, my own view is that anyone who
thinks I'm not a real SS op, that I haven't paid my dues, worked my way up,
developed my skills, etc., just hasn't been paying attention. It may say
something about their own experience, level, though, that they would be that
out of touch with reality as to think that.
A final point, advice for young or younger contesters on the politics of
contesting. 1, join a contest club and go, meet everybody, make friends.
2, if invited to a big multiop operation, go, and start building
relationships with all the other ops. 3, start going to Dayton when you're
young and go, if not every year, often, to build relationships. One
disadvantage I have is that, partly because of my "loner" side, I didn't go
to Dayton for the first time until 1991 or '92, after I had been contesting
for 25-27 years. Seeing and being seen by the "rising elite" is part of
what helps you be defined as one of the "rising elite" yourself. Don't do
it and you tend to be an unknown, except to the guys in your own state or
section or region who you either beat or who hear your footsteps. On the
other hand, like on going to Dayton, do I really care enough what this or
that other self-defined "hotshot" thinks of me to bother? Maybe not.
Still, this is my comment on what it takes to play the contest politics of
it so, after you've been contesting in SS for 38 years and been competitive
in your own region some young upstart won't lower his voice and say "He's
not a real SS operator, you know." hihi.
My apologies to WA3FET; I'm human. I succumed to getting down and dirty in
this discussion. Still, I think I avoided any four-letter words,
name-calling, at least "naming names," etc. I guess "snob" was the worst
word I used. hihi.
73 - Rich, KE3Q
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