[CQ-Contest] Using ON4KST-chat

[George Fremin III]

On Wed, Jan 30, 2008 at 05:21:57PM -0800, Kenneth E. Harker wrote:

> You should use the radio to make your radio contacts.  It's a radio
> contest, not an internet contest.

I think this statement sums it up for me.  I love doing radio contests.

The magic of this is the wireless part.

The part that is subject to the wrath of the solar cycle and the
ionosphere.

The part where I work on improving my radio station, my antennas in
order to get through the pileups and QRM to work those needed mults.

The part where I never know who or from where the next contact will
come.

I love the parts of the radio contest that rewards the operating
skills that many of us have learned by operating countless hours of
radio contests and countless hours tuning the bands listening to
static in hopes of hearing signals from distant lands.

Is this not the magic of radio that got you into the hobby in the
first place?

I have found that it is not amassing the biggest score in a radio
contest that keeps me coming back - it is the magic of radio.

If you were going to show someone amateur radio for the first time in
an effort to get them interested in this hobby you like.  How do you
think it would go if you showed them a radio but then called someone
up on your cell phone to get someone on the radio so you could make a
demonstration contact.  I think most folks would look at that and say, 
way do you have that radio junk?


-- 
George Fremin III - K5TR
geoiii at kkn.net
http://www.kkn.net/~k5tr