[CQ-Contest] Young people / the thrill is gone.

[Pete Smith]

I think this is a really neat thread.  

My own thinking is pretty close to Ward's, particularly on the benefit of
community.  I still remember with great pleasure the volume and quality of
advice I got from members of the old cq-contest at tvg.com reflector when I
posted an almost open-ended request for advice on building my first "real"
contest station.  In my subsequent message of thanks, I referred to it as
"a virtual barn-raising."  If all contesting involved was to sit in front
of the radio and operate contests, I think it'd get pretty old pretty fast.  

I have an advantage of sorts -- though I've been a ham 46 years, and
contested for 43 of those, I have only had even a moderately good station
for the last 4 years.  So I'm coming to a lot of contesting thrills very
late, and it's helped keep me fresh.

Recently, I've been getting a lot of pleasure from learning about things
like propagation prediction software and terrain modeling, trying to apply
them to both my particular situation and to contesting requirements in
general.  So much to learn!

Nothing very profound here, but I felt I had to add a word or two.  See you
this season.

 



73, Pete Smith N4ZR

Contesting is ... Extreme Radio

The World Contest Station Database 
is back up and running at
http://www.qsl.net/n4zr 



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