[CQ-Contest] Secrets of SSCW - #2

[Cqtestk4xs at aol.com]

I pretty much do the same thing for my contest weekends.  I put them on the 
calendar attached to the refrigerator.

The ARRL 10 meter contest is one of the ones not negotiable.  My wife's 
family has a sequential pre-Christmas dinner get together in which all 30 or so of 
them migrate from one relative's house for the appetizer, to another for one 
for main course, another for desert etc.
It was rather weird to be operating at a 250 hour in the first hour of the 
contest and to have them coming into the shack in small groups with desert in 
hand and watching me run stations.  A few would leave and others would come in. 
Eventually they all left.  

I don't think they fully understood why I couldn't come out and be sociable.  
Then again, I don't think anyone understands ham radio contesting except 
contesters!

Bill K4XS