[CQ-Contest] A New Perspective.....

[sawyered at earthlink.net]

Contesting is not video gaming.  And, quite frankly, I don't see dedicated gamers being fruitful ground for new contesters.  For me, contesting is much, much closer to stock car racing than gaming.  It is the culmination of station construction, engineering, design.  It is learning through experience and practice and sometimes luck in "reading the road", in our case propagation or QRM conditions.

Contesting is more about how good a receiving situation you have than how fast you can type (although I will also agree that typing errors are an issue for me as it seems with others on this list).

If you want to see new contesters get interested, get 'm on a tower.  See the hardware, bring them to you radio and listen to JAs or EUs coming in loud and "turn the beam" so that they can see the effect of the antenna.  Give them a shortwave radio to listen to a contest after getting an appreciation for "why it all matters".  Finally, have them show up at a M/M somewhere and see the "pit crew" type team experience.

THATs what will hook a prospective contester.  The gamer will comment that all this antenna tower stuff is un-necessary since you can do similar things on line with a computer.  To each his/her own...that's why they will remain gamers and not become radio contesters.

There is nothing quite like the satisfaction of working for weeks on an antenna system and then hearing the "wow you are loud" response from far away.  That, my friends, you will never, ever get with gaming or on line simulation.  And that IS contesting.

73

Ed  N1UR