[CQ-Contest] Secrets of Contesting

[dt]

Gentlemen, thanks to wd5r/n5ect it is no longer a secret.

For those of you that are working hard to improve your station,
letting the baby go without shoes so you can afford the best rigs,
and day dreaming of fields of beverages as far as you can see,
some advise from a 74 year old ex day dreamer.

Basic to being big time in the contest is not equipment or big fields.
Abuse your ears in your early years and it is a lost cause.

If you have to convert the audio from the receiver , via the keyboard,
to the screen before you know what you are hearing, it is a lost cause.

This last weekend, with parallel head phones, I watched Stan, k5go 
operate our station.
Guys, believe it or not, the meat of the contest is in all that noise I 
have been tuning past.
So often Stan was giving out a report to some DX station with his right 
hand,
while entering the call with his left hand,
and neither I nor the computer knew who he was working until it showed 
up on the screen.

Oh, BTW, I have been proud of my stubborn streak
that gives me the ability to stick with a run frequency
come hell or k9dx..

But Guys, if you have a run frequency 3 kcs wide and a gold framed deed 
to it,
you ain't gona 'top ten'  if you don't know when it's time to go hunt'n .
K5GO proved to me during this last contest,
you gota have a noise filter in your head,
you gota have a computer in your head
programed to convert that qrm to useful information,
and you got to know when to hold it and when to hunt for  it.

This was our  most enjoyable contest weekend
and all we did was listen.

Doug, n5ect
Marlene, wd5r