[CQ-Contest] Competitor Friendly Contesting

[Mark Beckwith]

Hats off to Kirk for a really good summary of reality.

> Even the SS, NAQP and Sprint Top Ten lists are more and more
> dominated by guest-op efforts than in years past.

I'm not sure this is as pronounced as it may seem - I counted them up in the 
3830 archives and found:

Number of Top Ten High Power guest ops*:
1996 7
1997 5
1998 6
1999 7
2000 6
2001 7
2002 4
2003 8
2004 4
2005 6

Sorry I couldn't find any info from earlier years; I don't have QSTs lying 
around here any more.  Could someone look at, like 1986 and 1976 and 1966 
just for the exercise?

Whereas you can't tell conclusively whether its increasing or decreasing, it 
is interesting to note that only in the past 4 years have more than half of 
the top ten NOT been guest ops (out of the last 10 years).  Kirk is still 
right, though, because a very substantial number of the top ten ARE guest 
ops.

Also, some of these guys operating actually built most if not all of the 
station they're operating, even though it belongs to another ham.

> I wonder if there is a way to describe the
> contesting scene to newcomers so that they
> don't wind up early on with a "what's the
> point" attitude?

Multi-Multis.  I can't think of any multi-multi owner who would not like to 
have some fresh meat walk in the door to corrupt.  Any nerd worth their salt 
would get a woody just walking into K3LR (or fill in the callsign of your 
favorite multi-multi).  Start at the top.  Hook 'em hard.

Mark, N5OT

* There was one W4PA at K4JNY I didn't count; I am under the impression they 
built that station together.