[CQ-Contest] Hunting in Africa

[John Brosnahan -- W0UN]

I'd make the claim that hunting with a rifle is a remote operation!

You pull a trigger here and 400 yards away something drops in
its track.  If you want REAL hunting it has to be mano y mano
with a knife or your bare hands!

If I am separated from my radio by a 4 ft headphone cord and
a 4 ft microphone (or keyer) cord I am not getting the "direct"
experience of being INSIDE the radio!  So what about my planned
station where the rigs will be located about 1500 ft from the house
because the house is at a lower elevation on the property.  I can
always walk to the shack and be separated from the radios by those
4 ft  cords, or I can set up remote control and have exactly the same
experience with 1500 ft cords.  (Or maybe some digital link over
WiFi.)  Is this any less of an experience?

So why is it any stretch to have the remote station 5 miles away?
Or 50 miles away?   Assuming of course that all of the antennas
and radios are within some arbitrary circle defined by the organizer
of the event.

Does a remote station give me an advantage?  Of course it does
or why would one bother.  But it is no more of an advantage (and
probably less due to the additional complexity and MTBF) than
buying some hill-top land in the country and commuting much
further to work.

Please dear God, give us some sunspots so people get off
the reflector and get back on the air -- so maybe they can get a
real radio experience.

--John  W0UN