[CQ-Contest] Feb 04 QST op-ed article

[Jimk8mr at aol.com]

In a message dated 1/19/04 5:16:56 AM Pacific Standard Time, 
K4ZW at Staffnet.com writes:


>   Why is it then that contest operators can manage to operate in this
> environment, working stations typically running 100 watts or less with
> dipoles or small beams, but other segments of the amateur population can't
> seem to cope? 


Partly because we have a vastly different definition of "working".

"DL1XXX, that your callsign?....  Again?    OK, QSL the 5914.  Thanks, Kilo 8 
Mike Radio, Contest?" 

is not what much of the world considers a QSO.



I also believe that our (contesters' ) brains have been rewired to process 
sound in a noisy, chaotic aural environment.  

I find very interesting the neuroscience research on the ability of the brain 
to adapt, and think that ours have adapted to listening to weak signals 
amongst lots of QRM and QRN, in a way that those of non-contesting hams have not.

It would be fascinating to see how the brains of contesters vs. 
non-contesters vs. non-hams behave as they process chaotic sound information.  Anyone know 
a grad student in need of a good project/thesis topic?   Anyone want to 
volunteer to operate a contest while hooked up to a PET scan or the like?


73  -  Jim  K8MR