Matthew,
Thanks for your comments!
Never say never! You will surprise yourself some day.
Like the marathon runners that probably are not going to win, they do it
to push themselves like you say or to beat your score from last year.
The issue I always had as it took so long for the result to come out
that you kinda forgot about what you did until the results hit the magazine.
CWT and the weekly contests have become quite popular with pretty much
instant results via 3830scores.com. I think NAQP is popular because it
is fun and happens multiple times a year.
If you have other comments on visually making logging software better
or what things you would like to see on a scoreboard please post those
in detail so we can attempt to capture these ideas.
I hope to work you in many contests down the road!
W0MU
On 12/19/2016 8:17 AM, Matthew Stevens wrote:
I am a young ham, 24 years old. My first "contest" was Field Day 2012 at
20. Ever since then I have slowly built my skills, both in operating and
electronics. I've also built my station, going from an IC-7000 (that I
saved my own money for) and a homebrew 20/40 OCF dipole to now a FT-DX1200
with an 80m end fed and 6 band hexbeam.
I'll never be able to compete at the top level...but that's not why I do
it. Ham radio interests me:
a) because of the magic of being able to talk around the world instantly
without any infrastructure or wires involved. One guy said that he could
"feel the world turn" - that sums up my sentiment exactly. I'm using my
skills and a lot of equipment that I have built myself, to employ the basic
laws of the universe to send messages to other people. What could be cooler
than that?
b) Because I like the challenge. Can I get this to work? What do I have to
learn about physics (solar weather, propagation, antennas, electricity) in
order to make a contact? What kind of skills can I add (CW etc.) that will
let me operate in any type of conditions I might encounter? This is a
similar mindset that led me into astronomy: Learning skills that will let
me explore my world and the universe.
Put these together and you understand why I like contesting. It's an arena
where I get to challenge myself, to see how well my station works, to see
how good my skillset really is. I have no delusions about being able to
even place in a major contest...but that doesn't matter, because like
running a marathon I am primarily competing against myself. Can I do better
than last time? Can I up my code speed? Can I top my old run rate? Can I
use QRP or low power to snag a rare mult?
I've thought long about how to attract young people to ham radio and
contesting, and have basically decided that unless they already "get" the
magic of radio as I've described, they aren't going to be interested or
stay with the hobby.
All that said, I really like the idea of a scoreboard, especially a visual
one. Something like the network attack map at http://map.norsecorp.com/#/.
DXHeat and clublog have already made some strides towards making this
happen, and I think it's only a matter of time before we get some cool live
views and contact maps during the contest.
Just this young ham's two cents :)
73
- Matthew
KK4FEM
On Sun, Dec 18, 2016 at 12:42 PM, W0MU Mike Fatchett <w0mu@w0mu.com> wrote:
I had the opportunity to talk to my son in more detail and ask him why
contesting does not interest him. Here is what we discussed.
1. Cost to get in the game and have a chance to win is prohibitive. You
need a great station, land, etc to really win or compete. The playing
field is so unbalanced that it becomes a show stopper. For him he has no
costs when at home. I consider my station modest with a 70 ft tower and
land to put up Inv L's and full sized 80m verticals and some receiving
antennas. I could do more but we have horses and they need to roam and are
hell on things in the pasture.
2. You have to invest a lot of time to get good. If he can not have a
really good station then why invest the time to get good if you are not
going to be able to really compete.
2. The tools we use to contest, logging software, packet look like old dos
programs. He called them ugly and boring. He is used to amazing graphics
in games. I found this observation interesting. I feel that the tools we
have are pretty good and give me what I want to see readily available. I
was not expecting this answer.
3. He is far more interested in using packet where he can immediately
chase things. Packet essentially gives him a list of things to do or
goals. It is more visual so more interesting. He thought that more
automated systems would be interesting. Young people and even us older
folk expect things to happen much faster. They are the generation of
instant satisfaction and some of that even rubs off on us older folk.
4. Talking to someone over the airwaves is still pretty cool. You can
instantly talk around the world if the right condx exist, but we can talk
all over the world with our phones so it is not as amazing as it once was.
5. CW is interesting but he was surprised that we don't have better code
readers. While he would like to learn the code time is once again the
factor. They have so many other outlets for entertainment that it is hard
to find time for all of them.
6. Results take far too long to come out
7. He proposed that all participants use a scoreboard type system. Many
of us have said this was something we need to do but have instead met with
amazing resistance and a ton of excuses why people refuse to use it. A
system where everyone can check it out and see what is going in in the
contest. We are back to visuals.
6. Playing radio in the car driving is fun because there is not much else
to do but drive.
7. He has his general license but he does not have the technical skills or
electronic knowledge to build a shack or decent station. I am not a great
teacher especially to my own kids so I take some of the blame for this but
it is hard to teach people things when they don't want to devote much time
to it. I feel a reluctance to even try to do something without having the
proper knowledge. A far cry from when I was young and tried all sorts of
silly antennas and projects that mostly failed miserably but boy did I
learn from those mistakes.
That pretty much summed up our hour long conversation and I am no closer
to figuring out how to sell ham radio and contesting to them. I hope some
will find this information helpful and interesting.
W0MU
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