[CQ-Contest] cut #, Honest RST

[Steve Harrison]

At 06:44 PM 6/1/2007 -0400, you wrote:
>...someone wrote:
>>but I suspect computer logging is responsible for the universal 599.
>
>
>I don't think so.  There wasn't much computer logging being done when I 
>started playing this game in the late 70s/early 80s but my logs indicate 
>pretty much universal 59(9) reports.  So it started way before then....

I agree. I haven't dug out my old contest logs (may not even have them any
longer) but from what I rember, "honest" reports were pretty common through
at least the very early '70s.

Then the two west coast contest clubs evolved (NCCC first, by at least
several years, before SCCC, I believe), and I think that's about when
things began to go downhill, RST-wise (but not solely because of THEM; it
was just that contest competition across the whole country was rapidly
expanding and becoming more popular at the time).

I still rember the weekly early Sprints held by NCCC back in those days on
75m. I don't, though, really rember any similar CW sprints, not sure why
not. A faintly weak thought comes to mind that maybe, we held a CW sprint
in the 75m phone band (around 3815, wasn't it???), only 10 minutes duration
or something??? Then there was a phone Sprint a bit later, I think. There
were a HECK of a lot of young southern Californians who were intensely
interested in contesting back in those days. We were supremely jealous of
the NCCC  ;o\  ;o\  ;o\  At that time, almost all of we SoCal contesters
were members of the Southern California Net (may it rest in peace, God
willing  ;o(((((  That was mainly, at least for some of the contesters, so
that they could continue to qualify for an ORS appointment for the CD Parties.

I even rember when Phil, N6ZZ, used to check into SCN several times a week
(at the time, he was W6DQX). Those were the days  ;o(((((

And would you believe this: up until the early '70s or so, W6DGH used ONLY
a bug

===========================8-O   (some of you will know who Dick is, now  ;o)

DANG, but he had a great bug rhythm....

At the time, there was already the long-established northern and southern
California DX clubs, the NCDXC and SCDXC. At first, very few of those young
SoCal contesters would have anything to do with the SCDXC, in part because
the majority of the SCDXCers were well-established DXers on the honor roll
and exhibited a somewhat aloof attitude toward the younger guys (unless you
had proven yourself by getting on the honor roll, such as Larry, WA6EPQ and
his brother managed to do from a supremely unfavorable location on the
Palos Verdes Peninsula). Fortunately for myself, Don Wallace seemed to take
a liking to me early, perhaps because of my interest in 5BDXCC, and drove
me to monthly SCDXC meetings for several years. I was always amazed that we
not only arrived at the downtown LA cafeteria without sideswiping another
car, but that we also got home in similar condition  ;o))))

IIRC, there were even several guys who had tape recorded exchanges set up
just for the Sprints. The tone of their voices for the Sprints sometimes
were hilarious  ;o))))))  I bet Tree and Mark (N5OT) both rember those days
equally vividly. I wonder whether Tree still has any tape recordings of
those Sprints......  They outta be archived, they were simply hilarious,
especially the reactions of the NoCal guys when they realized what Tree and
others were doing  8-)))))))))))))))

Steve, K0XP