[CQ-Contest] SS is not broke -- but my voice is

[Pete Smith]

At 09:57 PM 11/17/02 -0500, TOMK5RC at aol.com wrote:
>First time in many moons in SS SSB. The caliber of operators was excellent.
>Courtesy was everywhere.
>
>Great to hear so many new calls and so many folks mentoring new ops.
>

Indeed ... and the proliferation of multis was where a lot of the new folks 
were apparently.  It was great to work folks with 01 and 02 checks, too.

Let me diverge to an entirely different subject.  I am not a phone 
contester, but get on in SSB SS to make points for my club.  This year, I 
had disposed of my Rigblaster, and had no effective way of coupling 
hum-free audio from my sound card to my 2-radio box, so I was obliged to 
say everything myself.

After an hour or so, I would find myself totally running out of voice -- 
throat getting sore, hoarseness setting in, etc.

Other than recorded audio, are there any special techniques that phone 
contesters use to avoid vocal fatigue?

73, Pete N4ZR
Sometimes a tower is just a tower