[CQ-Contest] contesting in 10 years

[Eric Hilding]

Today I found myself at the Candy Store (HRO) in Sunnyvale for a while, and talked with 3 hams who were there.  Unfortunately, none were not CW ops ;-(   The youngest one in his 20's was twiddling with the FT-2000 Demo, so when I took my turn, he listened as I dialed in on the FOC Marathon CW activity on 20m.  When I suggested approaching code as though it were "Music", he seemed to perk up.  I gave him a pitch about Contesting and the URL for our NCCC website and my callsign,  since I {sigh} did indicate that SSB contesting is an option from Mutli-Op stations for non-CW ops like himself currently in apartments.  He said it was pretty tough operating in general with an Icom 706 to an indoor Hamstick.  Do ya think? 

As I was on the long drive home, a troubling thought came to mind.

Now that the FCC has dropped the code requirements, if there is an avalanche influx of new SSB ops on the bands, as years go by, I caught a glimpse of the *possibilities* of "CW" being squashed into maybe only the bottom 25Khz of each band (to make room for all the no code SSB ops who will probably complain about the excessive QRM in the phone band segments).  Perish the thought, but we should be prepared for such an eventuality.

One solution would be for more CW Contesters to get into SO2R (even with an indoor Hamstick on one band :-)  And, of course, to start allowing Dupes in the future on a graduated basis to offset any major decreases in overall operator activity when circumstances may require such action.

In the meantime, let's all have as much Contesting fun as we can until collective Auto-CQing produces fewer and fewer results.

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On Sat, 3 Feb 2007, DL8MBS wrote:

I had previously written:
>
> > <sorry_this_is_a_fully_automated_station_so_I_can't_answer_your_question_right_now.wav> :-)

Chris, DL8MBS, replied:

> Interesting perspective... How about adding systems of some
> "service"-hotlines that we may only need to say  "One" to get the serial
> number again from the automated station, say "Two" to get the suffix
> again and so on. "Cut numbers" for phone.
> Also :-) and 73, Chris

That's pretty funny, Chris!

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I had also previously written:

>> One of the big advantages of full voice-automation is
>> significantly reduced fatigue.  The older contest ops get,
>> the more  important this aspect will become.

Oliver Dröse (callsign unknown), wrote:

> Is it? Me gets rather fast fatigue if just sitting in front of the radio
> pressing buttons and not being "actively involved" myself and I'm just 31 yet!
> ;-)) That's why I switch off the voice keyer from time to time and call CQ by myself ...

At 31 I would have probably been somewhat bored pushing buttons too.  Wait another 30 years 
and let me know what you think then!  In the interim, any combination of "live" and "automated" is totally permissible :-)

73...

Rick, K6VVA