[CQ-Contest] Going Over to the Dark Side

[Bob Naumann - N5NJ]

Ron,

If you weren't bothered enough to copy down their calls, why would you
bother to tell the story?

Someone could make up a story like yours without ever turning on their radio
to just make another anti-contest statement.

Please include callsigns in such stories.

N5NJ
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ron Notarius WN3VAW" <wn3vaw at fyi.net>
To: <cq-contest at contesting.com>
Sent: Sunday, January 12, 2003 11:53 AM
Subject: [CQ-Contest] Going Over to the Dark Side


> Well, I had an interesting experience last night.  I had a taste of what
the
> non-contesters have been complaining about.
>
> I was trying to answer a CQ from ER1DA on 80 CW, around about 0600 Z, when
I
> suddenly was called by about 6 - 10 US stations (I guess they were in the
> NAQP?  I wasn't participating in the contest, so I don't know).  Honest
> mistake, I figured at first, so I explicitly sent "ER1DA de WN3VAW" & "NOT
> IN TEST" several times.
>
> 2 or 3 stations -- no, I didn't copy down the calls -- would not give up
> until I finally quit transmitting for a few minutes.  Of course by that
> time, ER1DA (who was being wiped out by the other signals) was long gone.
> And since Europe was coming in 579 to 599+20 at that point (it was a great
> opening otherwise), I had a good shot at him.
>
> Now my point isn't to pick on the contest ops per se... I'm SURE it was
> simply the heat of the moment.  At least at first.  But when the
> non-contester is making it CLEAR that he is trying to work someone else,
to
> keep calling & calling & calling to the point of breaking up the QSO and
> torquing off one or both of the non-contest ops is excessive and
potentially
> poor operating.
>
> So the next time I read (on eHam or elsewhere) someone complaining about
> contesters... well, I'll have a little more empathy.  And I'm going to
watch
> my own operating habits in contests better in the future, as I don't want
to
> accidently do to someone else what happened to me last night.
>
> 73, ron wn3vaw
>
> "Doc?  You built a time machine... out of a DeLorean?"
> "The way I look at it, if you're going to build a time machine out of a
car,
> you might as well do it with style!"
> --  Marty McFly & Dr. Emmet Brown, "Back to the Future"
>
>
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