[CQ-Contest] A 1971 prediction about contesting in 2001: How accurate?

[Fred Laun K3ZO]

I have recently been cleaning up my shack and home office which had become
overrun with boxes full of old papers.  In the course of this cleanup I ran
across the May/June 1971 issue of OHM (Oriental Ham Magazine) published in
Hong Kong by the late Phil Wight, VS6DR/W5UHK.  In that time frame I was
stationed in Viet Nam with little opportunity to get on the air so I spent
some of my spare time writing articles for Phil's magazine. 

In this particular issue appears one of my contributions, inspired by the
then much-talked-about Stanley Kubrick film of similar title.  If Kubrick
could forecast how  
computers would function in 2001, then I thought I would take a stab at
looking at contests in the same year.  Ye gads, 2001 is almost upon us!
You can see below how far off my predictions turned out to be.  For one
thing, I never foresaw the establishment of the SOA category.

Anyone out there want to take a stab at describing a contest in 2031?

>From Ohm Magazine, May-June 1971

2001 DX CONTEST OSYSSEY

The date is October 23, 2001, and OM Bixby is busily preparing
for the 56th annual CQWW Phone Contest.  The new category allowing
credit for QSOs with outposts on the Moon and Mars and space-ship
mobiles above 1296 MHz has necessitated the reprogramming of the
station computer to take advantage of these new categories. Bixby
is looking forward to the QSO with Mars, as the Mars MARS station
has been granted special authority to work amateur stations for
the duration of the contest.

One programming problem has been to arrange to allow the computer
to continue to QSO stations on the HF bands while at the same time
participating in the Mars pileup on 1296.  To QRX for the time it
takes a signal to get to Mars and back would be extremely wasteful,
especially since the pileup will undoubtedly be horrendous and one
cannot plan on getting Mars on the first call.  After all, with
900,000 JAs, 400,000 Ws, 300,000 BYs and 100,000 Gs, not to mention
the others, pileups are something for a computer to behold in this
day and age!  Why just last night in the X22AA pileup Bixby's
computer was dumbfounded by the tactics of that DX-hogging computer
at JA23FLQO.

Bixby is pleased that the single-operator category has finally been
eliminated in this year's rules.  After all, with almost every station
now computer-equipped, the single-operator category had long since
become a relic of an anachronistic age.

Bixby has a secret weapon this year which should confound the
competition. It cost a lot of money, but all of Bixby's computer's
contest voice tapes this year will feature the voice of the actress
Tay Kitt Hoff.  Those other sex-starved computers will go wild when
sensing this voice coming through the pile-ups first, but Prof.
Schultz of the Computer Institute assures Bixby that after the QSO
there will be a temporary recovery period during which the computer
contacted will operate at less than 50% efficiency.  Naturally Bixby
has programmed his computer to sense the signals of the principal
competition first so that they can be worked right at the beginning
of the contest, allowing Bixby to get off to a big lead while the
competing computers struggle to fight off the effects of the actress'
voice.

The multi-nation agreement on standardizing propagation by laser
bombardment of the ionosphere should make this year's contest very
interesting.  Imagine, all bands open to all parts of the globe around
the clock!  No geographic area will have the advantage on propagation.
Now everything will hinge on who has the better station, the better
computer and the best command of programming skills.

Yes, this year's contest should be the greatest ever.  If Bixby can
successfully avoid last year's equipment breakdown by programming
the computer to sense impending transmitter difficulties, he may
even be able to take the XYL and the kiddies to the beach and let
the computer operate the contest all alone!  Maybe the single
operator category should have been retained, after all.

(end)

73, Fred       


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>From Leigh S. Jones" <kr6x at adsl-63-194-227-234.dsl.lsan03.pacbell.net  Wed Aug  2 05:09:20 2000
From: Leigh S. Jones" <kr6x at adsl-63-194-227-234.dsl.lsan03.pacbell.net (Leigh S. Jones)
Date: Tue, 1 Aug 2000 21:09:20 -0700
Subject: [CQ-Contest] Fw: CD Parties and the decline of western civilization
Message-ID: <0f6b01bffc37$6eee1200$ede3c23f at kr6x.org>


Please forgive the multiple inclusions...

----- Original Message -----
From: <GNieborsky at kec.com>
To: <kr6x at adsl-63-194-227-234.dsl.lsan03.pacbell.net>
Sent: Tuesday, August 01, 2000 7:43 AM
Subject: RE: CD Parties and the decline of western civilization


> Post this to the list....ahhhh....another issue altogether! I got off the
> list because I was having trouble coping with some of the idiotic posts
> being put out regarding "good contest operating practices" and "might
makes
> right".  I now read the condensed version where I can pick and choose
which
> posts are worth reading without any urge to read them all.
>
> If you want to forward it on to the list you have my permission.
>
> Gary K7FR
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Leigh S. Jones
> [mailto:kr6x at adsl-63-194-227-234.dsl.lsan03.pacbell.net]
> Sent: Monday, July 31, 2000 18:15
> To: GNieborsky at kec.com
> Subject: Re: CD Parties and the decline of western civilization
>
>
> Thanks for your observations -- why don't you post this to the
reflector???
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <GNieborsky at kec.com>
> To: <kr6x at adsl-63-194-227-234.dsl.lsan03.pacbell.net>
> Sent: Monday, July 31, 2000 3:50 PM
> Subject: CD Parties and the decline of western civilization
>
>
> > Leigh,
> >
> > I agree in good part to your observations regarding the CD parties,
> > contesting, and the decline of HF radio.  I think that you are missing
> > another key part of the equation; fun.  Contesting is fun as long as
folks
> > think they are having fun.  Lately it seems that we are being overtaken
in
> > an orgy of "bigger, better, faster, louder" with a good dose of "big
guns
> > know better".  To the non-contestor or his cousin the couple of hours on
a
> > weekend ham the view of this orgy is one of "hey, this is cool" until he
> > gets pushed aside by the big gun who wants his frequency.  He moves and
> > finds the 2-land QSO machine knocking off contacts at 100 per without
nary
> a
> > thank you. Then he works a dupe and gets the "you idiot you're a dupe!!"
> > reply. Then his attitude becomes one of "this sucks" and off goes the
> radio.
> > He isn't having fun any longer.  The next contest weekend comes along
and
> he
> > works a few friends and goes golfing.  Soon his radio is listed on
e-bay.
> >
> > As a reformed contestor (2 years away from it all) I'm here to tell you
> that
> > the view isn't pretty.
> >
> > On the plus side I am teaching Boy Scouts ham radio classes and the
> majority
> > seem to be into it.  I seldom see hard core contestors involved in
> > generating the next generation of hams.
> >
> > I think the CAC needs to be reconstituted with a broader cross section
of
> > hamdom and be in direct charge of ARRL contests.  Having the hard core
> > contestors in charge would be like having the Mafia sitting on the
> organized
> > crime commission.
> >
> > Just some thoughts.
> >
> > Gary K7FR


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>From Corneliu <corneliu at de.st>  Fri Aug  4 07:37:05 2000
From: Corneliu <corneliu at de.st> (Corneliu)
Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2000 09:37:05 +0300
Subject: [CQ-Contest] YO-DX HF CONTEST this week-end !!!!!!!
Message-ID: <1554108200.20000804093705 at de.st>


We kindly invite you to take part to the biggest YO international  HF
competition: " YO-DX HF CONTEST" on 6-th of August 2000 from 00.00 UTC to 20.00 UTC
Bands and modes: 3.5 ; 7 ; 14 ; 21 ; 28 MHz CW and SSB according to IARU Reg I band planning

You can find full rules and results from previous years on my site: http://www.qsl.net/yo4aul/

There you can read also the full story of the first DXpedition to Sacalin Island (IOTA EU-183)

73 & GL de YO4AUL, Corneliu
mailto:yo4aul at qsl.net



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