[CQ-Contest] Reflectors, Texting, and Thank You to Contesting.com

[Pete Smith]

Back in the Paleolithic era (around 1994), there were only two ham 
reflectors - DX, run by a VE (sorry, I forget his call) and CQ-Contest.  
I remember how people used to go to great lengths to include the word 
"contest" somewhere in their posts on CQ-Contest, even when the real 
subject of their interest was something else.  Eventually, that led to 
the proliferation of ham reflectors like Towertalk, Topband, RFI and so on.

Back in the day, people posting on the reflectors took great pains 
always to sign their names and callsigns, and to sign off with "73" (or 
"73's" - hi).  I've noticed in the last couple of years that the advent 
of texting has led to a proliferation of unsigned messages on the 
reflectors, as if people forget that they are writing not just to one 
person who knows them well, but for an audience of hundreds or 
thousands. It is becoming almost unusual to see "73, Bob N6AAA" at the 
bottom of a message anymore.

I've always felt that we lose something when we decouple our posts from 
our calls.  I do hope that maybe people will consider this, and take the 
few extra seconds (or store a standard signature in their e-mail 
programs) so that in the new year this marker of our community becomes a 
bit more common.

Meanwhile, I'd like to suggest that we all pause in this holiday season 
to consider how lucky we are to be in this wonderful hobby, and to say 
thank you to the people at contesting.com for their quiet generosity all 
these years, supporting the core of the ham reflector community.  
Thanks, as well, to the thousands of people on all the various 
reflectors who give freely of their time and knowledge to help others 
who share their interest in some aspect of the ham radio adventure.

-- 
73, Pete N4ZR

The World Contest Station Database, updated daily at www.conteststations.com
The Reverse Beacon Network at http://reversebeacon.net, blog at reversebeacon.blogspot.com,
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