[CQ-Contest] Why do we put rag chewing on a pedestal?

[Fred Laun K3ZO]

Hi Hans:

At 03:31 AM 8/16/99 +0100, K0HB wrote:
>Interesting breakdown, Fred.  Just on a whim I did a
>quick look at the first QST I could find (July 1999).

Hey I was thinking of doing that!  You saved me the trouble!

>Looked as hard as my weak eyes would allow, and found
>no articles about ragchewing. [grin]

No but after almost every contest a letter to the editor is run about how
the contest messed somebody up.  From the comments made in the letters I
have inferred that the activity that was messed up was almost always rag
chewing.  I hope these letters don't represent a large percentage of the
Amateur Radio community but the fact that they are run makes me wonder.
What operating activity was it that was so important between 28300-28350
during the ARRL 10 meter contest that the Membership Services Committee in
collusion with the now Vice Director from the Hudson Division who at that
time was Chairman of the CAC declared a CFZ there during the contest
without consulting the contesting community at large first?  Could it be
rag chewing?!

And how about this from the URE magazine?   Contest calendar three pages
alone?!

My comments generated a complaint from a DXer that more and more DXCC stuff
has been moved out of QST into the DX Yearbook or dropped altogether.  He
wants to bring it back into QST.  The URE magazine (as do the Japanese
magazines) even has a "stations reported" page where people give frequency
and time of the rare stuff they've worked.  Oh for the days of W9BRD!

Thanks Hans for the comments and 73,

Fred, K3ZO  


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