[CQ-Contest] succeeding on a budget/W4AN

[Kenneth E. Harker]

On Tue, Oct 02, 2001 at 08:56:42PM -0400, Frank Norton KB8XU wrote:
> 
> W4AN makes a wonderful point!  I think very often, why am I paying to read 
> about all the HUGE DOLLAR stations?  Yes I would love to have one and if I 
> did I would love to have an article written about how wonderful my new 
> station is.  However, is that what we are paying to read about?

So, I assume you are talking about the National Contest Journal, a W4AN made 
a passing reference to it in his post about a web page.

> I subscribed to find information about past and future contests, to find 
> out how to improve my performance in those contests, and finally to learn 
> as much as possible about all the facets of contesting....new equipment 
> reviews, SO2R setups, new digital modes and their contests, and of course 
> how to make the most out of what the majority of us can do with what we 
> have to make things work better or more efficiently.  By majority I refer 
> to everyone with two towers or less, especially the dipole in the attic 
> crowd.  The last group can perhaps teach us the most!  If someone has the 
> grit to contest under those conditions--they must know a lot of tricks to 
> contact the ones that often get away.
> 
> I did not subscribe to read primarily about "lives of the rich and 
> famous".  Please no boos or hisses, I love to hear the big multi-multi's 
> and talk with the "big guns", and of course the ultimate patronizing 
> remark--->my best ham buddy is an op on one of those famous multi-multi 
> stations. However these stations should not be the focus of article after 
> article in "THE"CONTESTING magazine.  A focused piece on new improvements 
> and contributions to the "knowledge base" of contesting would be great, but 
> not a "WOW look at this" picture festival.  The picture festivals do 2 
> types of damage--one, they take up lots of expensive budget (color pix are 
> tough and expensive to publish) and two, they are not often very 
> educational or even entertaining (how many pictures of multiple towers with 
> several huge antennas do you want to see?).  What do you learn from each of 
> these pieces?  I was taught that unless I learn at least 3 new things from 
> each article in a journal type magazine it is a waste of my time and money 
> to continue my subscription.

So...  there's an easier way to fix this.  You could write an article or two
for the magazine yourself.  Send in photos of your station, your friend's
station, your neighbor's station...  Or encourage someone you know who 
enjoys writing and would be interested in writing about these kinds of 
issues.  Every author in the NCJ is a volunteer.  You're subscription cost 
basically goes to meet the costs of production and distribution.  

Plus, aside from the cover, there are no color photos in the NCJ.

...and you might be surprised to find that many multi-tower contest 
stations are built by those who are not anywhere near millionaires or
what one would conventionally call "rich."

> This money from the publishing budget could provide a number of pages of 
> articles about other subjects.  I will not pretend to know what everyone 
> else is interested in, but certainly reviews about equipment and 
> accessories, perhaps used alternatives to new multi-thousand dollar rigs 
> etc., new and old computer programs involved in contesting, newbie articles 
> by the score etc.--add your own ideas here.

Um, there is zero "publishing budget" for authors.  The authors write and
photograph the aspects of contesting that they are most interested in.
If you've got ideas, write them up and send them to editor at ncjweb.com.

> Here is the end...yes, I really like to look....but I paid to learn, and 
> have some fun too when I subscribed.
> 
> 73 to all de KB8XU Frank
> 
> 
> --
> CQ-Contest on WWW: http://lists.contesting.com/_cq-contest/
> Administrative requests: cq-contest-REQUEST at contesting.com
> 

-- 
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Kenneth E. Harker      "Vox Clamantis in Deserto"      kharker at cs.utexas.edu
University of Texas at Austin                   Amateur Radio Callsign: WM5R
Department of the Computer Sciences         President, UT Amateur Radio Club
Taylor Hall TAY 2.124                         Maintainer of Linux on Laptops
Austin, TX 78712-1188 USA            http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/kharker/
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