[CQ-Contest] Why do we like our favorite contesting mode?

[James Cain]

Anybody else notice that not a single phone operator has posted on this topic?

Like most folks I'm in total denial about the Aging Process but I have noticed that less and less I like trying to sort one voice out of a group of people yakking -- and I mean in person but a radio group probably is little different.

I am more comfortable listening to CW at a slightly higher pitch than I used to (maybe 420 Hz instead of 380). In the 1980s I was very interested in high-end audio and used to dread the predicted hearing loss of 1000 Hz at the top end for every decade I aged. 

Modern radios allow us to do all sorts of CW signal audio tailoring; but what options do phone operators have? When you have a hearing test, they don't feed you voices, they feed you pure dc tones. 

Others have observed that we radio operators have spent thousands of hours bombarding our ears through headphones. For our generation, add rock concerts to the damage and we are probably lucky to have any hearing left at all. 

But Dad was right -- aging beats the alternative. Better deaf than dead.

Jim Cain
At The K1TN Superstation