[CQ-Contest] ANOTHER SMELLY SUBJECT

[Rick Tavan]

I care a lot, Jim, but I don't know what to do about it. Forty years 
ago, growing up on the East Coast, I was always hearing about "those 
California Kilowatts <wink>." There was also a lot of rubber clocking 
and other illegal and quasi-legal stuff going on that was at least 
tolerated if not passively encouraged. "Everyone does it" seemed to be 
the order of the day. But somehow, the ethical climate in US radiosport 
has changed. By the time I got to California myself, circa 1977, I found 
no big amps at the contest stations where I visited and guest-operated. 
In fact, some of the largest stations were downright religious about 
following the letter of the law and remain so to this day. Maybe I've 
led a sheltered life, but I think the level of cheating is way down, at 
least in the US, and is probably not much of a factor in the results. 
Maybe some day this spirit of good sportsmanship will prevail worldwide. 
In the meantime, we will just have to chuckle or grumble, whichever 
suits us, when an S9 southern European station can't hear us at all when 
we are running 1500w to a good monobander.

73,

/Rick N6XI

James Neiger wrote:

>
>The blatant and illegal use of super high power in contests.
>
>Is it happening? You bet it is. Some who do are even seemingly very proud of
>the fact (when I was in Slovenia for WRTC2000, one very well known European
>operator came up to me and bragged that most everyone who is competitive in
>his area were running Henry 8K's).
>