[CQ-Contest] New Blood in Contesting

[Merrimon Crawford]

New Blood in contesting from the perspective of new blood:

How do you get new blood in contesting?  I'll leave aside questions of new
categories and contest club radii,  since I do not have years of contesting
to comment intelligently on these issues.

[As an aside, I would not mind seeing the possibility of a high band,
10m-20m, category in some contests.  I live in an apartment and am unable
to get up 80m/160m antennas.  As it is, it's amazing that I have gotten
away with the antennas I do have (we have a no antenna rule).  More and
more people live in antenna-restricted areas, so perhaps there is/will be a
place for this in a few contests.]

I'm fairly new and perhaps still new blood.  These are a few things that
inspired me:

1.  Most importantly, I heard good operators on the air. Polite and
courteous and obviously enjoying themselves and the contests.  None of this
seemed to slow their speed----often these are the same people who end up
with the top scores.

Fortunately, I was hooked on contesting before I started hearing any of the
frequency stealing (actual frequency stealing/malicious interference), RUDE
comments in the pile-ups as well as people throwing their call ad nauseum
all over the rare CQing station and when he asked for the full call of
someone that did not in any way resemble the ad nauseum station, etc. etc.
Nor did I hear a CQing station lambasting a QRP station almost to the point
of profanity for running QRP as I did in a recent contest.  When I first
heard contestors on the air, I heard operators that I wanted to emulate in
my operating techniques.  I heard people who enjoyed what they were
doing----their fun was infectious!  I heard operators work hard to hear my
weak signal and thank me for my patience (seems like they were the patient
ones to me!) or a Hawaii station asking me to come back when the band
opened more (it worked).  How can anyone resist a CQ from these kinds of
operators?

2.  Some stations responded to my QSL cards, often with a nice short note.
I started paper chasing.  Contests are good places to hear new counties,
states, countries.

3. Paper logs were accepted (for under a certain amount of QSO's at least).
  I didn't plan to enter my first contest until after the fact.  After
making a fair amount of contacts, I decided to turn in my first logs.  I
didn't invest in contesting software until after I decided contesting was
one of my favorite aspects of amateur radio.

4.  Certificates/pins were available to stations making 100+ contacts.
This was the primary reason why I turned in my first log.  

5.  I saw my call in the listings and wow, I wasn't last.  It would have
been nice if the listings were more timely!

Why do I continue contesting?  For many of the same reasons I started.
Plus:
I seem to be improving in my operating because my scores seem to be
increasing and I can work weaker stations than I couldn't previously/am
able to make people hear me better though there have been few changes to my
actual equipment.   I don't care about winning as much as I do about seeing
improvement.  

Most contestors still seem to be good polite operators, although I have
started to enjoy CW contesting more than SSB at times for this reason.
Perhaps people can be just as rude on CW, I don't know, but it's easier for
me to tune them out. 

I enjoy the contestors.  It's fun to work people I've worked previously.
Sometimes they even know my name (which is not to advocate the use of names
all the time).I've e-emailed some contestors with questions (I am one of
very few---if not the only one---contestors in my county and local clubs)
like: "What do I do if I have corrected the call sign mistake at least once
and they move on with QRZ instead of getting the correction....should I
hound them?"  Their responses were helpful and encouraging.

73,
Merri KF4OAD



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