[CQ-Contest] Rising IQ This Year

[Dennis OConnor]

I noted a definite rise in the average IQ in this years bash... (IQ = Idiot Quotient)
 
The DX station answers the howling pack with "N2?" and gets dozens of alphabetically challenged US stations calling him right over top of the "N2..." station - and not one of them has an N or a 2 in their call...  Given that the IQ's do not have a receiver that works I am baffled how they found the DX in the first place or how they intend to copy him if he does answer them...
 
The DX station picks "k8do" out of the chaos gives me his exchange - the pack keeps on howling - I squirt my exchange and before he can "qsl", the pack then descends in full fury totally covering up the DX - even while he is transmitting as nothing slows the IQ's down... By the time the pack lets up enough to let me hear him again he is working someone else... I don't know if he acknowledged me or not... 
 
I am carefully sifting through the flotsam and jetsam in the spume between two gargantuan flagship MM's doing full cannon broadsides against each other 300 cycles apart, and I hear a tiny little DX chirping away - a multiplier even... I give him a call... He gets the "DO" and gives me a "DO?"... And at the instant I go to hit F4 a second time, at least 3 or 4 IQ's start bellowing forth their calls... Now I KNOW they did not hear the DX, that they only heard me drop my call and know there is some DX down in the noise and they jump in howling for blood... Of course I cannot hear the DX through them and they will not stop howling as long as I am trying to work him..  The DX bird gets frightened and flutters away...
 
And even in Europe the IQ is up... I heard a number EU signals that were wide enough to walk across the Atlantic on.. There was no possibilty of copying anyone near to them...
 
I could go on, but I won't... In these hard financial times, it is comforting to know that something is going up, even if it is only the IQ's of those operators...
 
OTOH, it was a fun bash... The K8DO contest station hit a new high with almost 600K points...  Looking forward to next year...

denny / k8do