[CQ-Contest] A new "DX cluster" experience for contesters

[Idle-Tyme]

On 4/17/2010 9:26 AM, K1TTT wrote:
> Right, so we all need to keep adding to our fun so we keep coming back for
> more and attract new operators!  New technology adds to my fun, so I am more
> likely to get out on the lake to try to do something more than before with
> it.  If I had to keep using manual cw with paper logs and no spotting
> network I would probably have given up years ago.
Really?

You would have given up years ago?  I am just curious as to why?

  I've been a ham since 1975,  and a contester just as long. First 
contest was Novenmber Sweepstakes of 75, been hooked ever since.  But I 
have never had a "Contest" station.  I was hired out as an operator at 
big gun stations in the 70's. Well i shouldn't say "Hired"  sounds like 
I was getting paid.  My "Pay" was the fun of operating at a Big Gun Station.

Otherwise all my contesting has been with a Drake TR-4 my second rig i 
got in 1976 after someone in a Mc Donalds parking lot hit my car and i 
used the money to buy the Drake.  But my station has been just that 
Drake and Low dipoles,  max elevation was like 30 feet?

No computers,  not clusters, even the old radio type where a local 
repeater people would announce verbally when they spot something Long 
before the packet clusters came to be.  never used any of that, and 
still love contesting.  only last year did i start to use the computer 
for logging,, till then it was still paper logs and dupe sheets.  And it 
still remains fun. And I still don't use the clusters.

Maybe all the high tech stuff has taken the "FUN" out of it for you 
where you use your skills to work as many as possible and not rely on 
all the fancy electronic stuff to find it all for you?

Maybe?

Joe WB9SBD