[CQ-Contest] SECRETS OF CONTESTING, CH. 21 - MACHO CONTESTING

[Michael Tope]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jim Neiger" <n6tj at sbcglobal.net>

> I'm reading with great interest now the levels to what  SO2R and the 
> Sprint
> have  evolved.  And these are fundamentally the reasons I "retired" from
> Sprinting many years ago.
>
> Early on, I found the Sprint fun, and of course always challenging, 
> although
> to me it smacked of Macho Contesting.  Kind of like what guys naturally do
> in their formative years, always trying to prove themselves?  Never much
> substance, never relaxing -

As a  total lid who will never win a Sprint, I feel eminently qualified
to jump in a play devil's advocate here:

> just trying to show who has fastest gun in town..........

Isn't that the whole idea, Jim? It is, after all, a CONTEST, and it is
called the SPRINT :-) :-)

Your comments strike me as someone who wants to have his cake
and eat it too (i.e. I want to relax and I want to win). You can always
relax in the Sprint. Call CQ very high or very low in the band at 30
WPM. Will you win? No - probably not. Will you have a relaxing
time? Seems possible.

> As to SO2R, just because you can do it, does it mean you should (forgive 
> me,
> again, Spiderman I)?  When I'm contesting from the DX end, I surely don't
> object to SO2R ops using their 2nd radio to call me, but I do take great
> exception when, without listening,  they rudely use it to plop their big,
> fat, CQ on a frequency that they have yet to establish.  Truly, Rotten
> Operating.  I can only imagine how it would add to the chaos of a Sprint -
> especially with the very limited bandwidth of 80 and 40.

Before all the do gooders go off and ban yet another tool that
sometimes gets missused,  let me suggest to everyone that we
should be banning bad behavior instead punishing everyone
by banning SO2R.  As Jim comments  suggest there are ways
to exploit SO2R - some good, some bad.

73, Mike W4EF (eminent LID)