[CQ-Contest] Something we need to remember

[Ron Notarius W3WN]

Keep in mind that it tends to be the same handful of people complaining.

If they're not complaining about contesting, they're complaining about
ragchewers and dx'ers interfering with their nets.  That's when they're not
complaining about nets and dx'ers interfering with their ragchewing... ad
infinitum ad nauseum.

There is a thread on one forum right now, started by a lengthy complaint of
how this poor old sod took so much time and effort to drag his TS-520 out of
storage, painfully hook it up to an antenna, and dagnabit, 20 meter SSB was
full of contesters, so he painfully packed the radio away as unusable.

Right.

All I can tell you is that during the short periods of time (and they were
short) that I had to operate this weekend (sorry, family comes first), I
noticed plenty of "white space" on 160, 80/75, and 15 meters.  If they
wanted to ragchew instead of contest, they should have had no problem
finding a holding a clear frequency.

They'd rather kvetch.

This is not to say that there aren't rude and obnoxious contesters out
there... I could name names if I had to under oath... or that everything is
always just peachy and hunky-dory, we all know better.  Just that these
semi-professional complainers need some Ritz and Gouda sent to them; you
know... some cheese and crackers to go with their whine...

73, ron w3wn