[CQ-Contest] why non-contesters hate us

[Hans K0HB]

The rule seems to be "I >>AM LOUDER THAN YOU<<.  I >>DESERVE<< to have this prime QRG."

Your subject line is absolutely accurate.

73, de Hans, K0HB

-----Original Message-----
>From: doug smith <dougw9wi at gmail.com>
>Sent: Oct 27, 2007 1:50 PM
>To: CQ-Contest at contesting.com
>Subject: [CQ-Contest] why non-contesters hate us
>
>OK, so I finally got enough laundry done to sit down & try CQing for a
>few minutes in the CQ WW SSB.  Running 500 watts to a 7-el tribander
>at 20m, I'm not the loudest signal on the band but I'm not a QRP
>lightweight either.
>
>21.405 sounds open.  I ask (twice) whether it's in use.  No response.
>Switch to CW, send a dit-stream to double-check the tuning on the amp
>- no response.  Ask yet again (on SSB) whether the frequency is in
>use.  No response.
>
>Start calling CQ.  Get a few answers, including Europeans.  Not much
>rate, but it's something.  Until, about ten minutes later:
>
>"CQ CONTEST OSCAR ECHO TWO SIERRA OSCAR ECHO TWO SIERRA".
>
>Right out of the clear blue sky.  Didn't ask whether there was anyone
>there, didn't listen before transmitting, just suddenly appeared &
>decided 21.405 was their private property.  Didn't go away when it
>became obvious there was another station there.  [0]
>
>We're darned lucky the station they stomped on was another contester.
>If it had been a schedule, ragchew, or net (however useless) on
>21.405, this behavior would have generated at least two
>contest-haters, ready to lobby their local IARU society to ban our
>pursuit.  I wonder how many of the anti-contest letters that regularly
>appear in QST and RadComm were provoked by similar behavior?
>
>There have been similar complaints posted here before, but I guess
>they finally caught me on a day when I was sleep-deprived enough to
>name names.  OE2S is not the *only* guilty party (and there are plenty
>here in the States - it's not just a European thing by any means) but
>they *are* a guilty party.
>
>This kind of crap HAS GOT TO STOP.  It's going to get us exiled to
>woefully inadequate slivers of the bands.  If I'd been recording the
>contest, a recording *would* be on the way to the Contest Committee.
>Are we going to have to get a few folks DQd, or are we just going to
>go ahead & provoke the non-contesters into driving us out of business?
>
>[0] I know damned well they could hear me.  I was (until they showed
>up) working stations in bordering countries - and had worked OE2S
>themselves just about an hour earlier.  And, when I refused to simply
>disappear when they started CQing, at one point they pretended (or
>thought) I answered their CQ - and got my call 100% right.  This kind
>of thing can - and does - happen by mistake when QRM/QSB conditions
>are poor.  What happened here today **was no mistake**.
>==
>Doug Smith W9WI
>Pleasant View, TN  EM66
>http://www.w9wi.com
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