[CQ-Contest] Observations of a young ham

[Matthew Stevens]

I am a young ham, 24 years old. My first "contest" was Field Day 2012 at
20. Ever since then I have slowly built my skills, both in operating and
electronics. I've also built my station, going from an IC-7000 (that I
saved my own money for) and a homebrew 20/40 OCF dipole to now a FT-DX1200
with an 80m end fed and 6 band hexbeam.

I'll never be able to compete at the top level...but that's not why I do
it. Ham radio interests me:

a) because of the magic of being able to talk around the world instantly
without any infrastructure or wires involved. One guy said that he could
"feel the world turn" - that sums up my sentiment exactly. I'm using my
skills and a lot of equipment that I have built myself, to employ the basic
laws of the universe to send messages to other people. What could be cooler
than that?

b) Because I like the challenge. Can I get this to work? What do I have to
learn about physics (solar weather, propagation, antennas, electricity) in
order to make a contact? What kind of skills can I add (CW etc.) that will
let me operate in any type of conditions I might encounter? This is a
similar mindset that led me into astronomy: Learning skills that will let
me explore my world and the universe.

Put these together and you understand why I like contesting. It's an arena
where I get to challenge myself, to see how well my station works, to see
how good my skillset really is. I have no delusions about being able to
even place in a major contest...but that doesn't matter, because like
running a marathon I am primarily competing against myself. Can I do better
than last time? Can I up my code speed? Can I top my old run rate? Can I
use QRP or low power to snag a rare mult?

I've thought long about how to attract young people to ham radio and
contesting, and have basically decided that unless they already "get" the
magic of radio as I've described, they aren't going to be interested or
stay with the hobby.

All that said, I really like the idea of a scoreboard, especially a visual
one. Something like the network attack map at http://map.norsecorp.com/#/.
DXHeat and clublog have already made some strides towards making this
happen, and I think it's only a matter of time before we get some cool live
views and contact maps during the contest.

Just this young ham's two cents :)

73


- Matthew
​ KK4FEM​


On Sun, Dec 18, 2016 at 12:42 PM, W0MU Mike Fatchett <w0mu at w0mu.com> wrote:

> I had the opportunity to talk to my son in more detail and ask him why
> contesting does not interest him.  Here is what we discussed.
>
> 1.  Cost to get in the game and have a chance to win is prohibitive.  You
> need a great station, land, etc to really win or compete.  The playing
> field is so unbalanced that it becomes a show stopper.  For him he has no
> costs when at home.  I consider my station modest with a 70 ft tower and
> land to put up Inv L's and full sized 80m verticals and some receiving
> antennas.  I could do more but we have horses and they need to roam and are
> hell on things in the pasture.
>
> 2. You have to invest a lot of time to get good.  If he can not have a
> really good station then why invest the time to get good if you are not
> going to be able to really compete.
>
> 2. The tools we use to contest, logging software, packet look like old dos
> programs.  He called them ugly and boring.  He is used to amazing graphics
> in games.  I found this observation interesting.  I feel that the tools we
> have are pretty good and give me what I want to see readily available.  I
> was not expecting this answer.
>
> 3. He is far more interested in using packet where he can immediately
> chase things.  Packet essentially gives him a list of things to do or
> goals.  It is more visual so more interesting.  He thought that more
> automated systems would be interesting.  Young people and even us older
> folk expect things to happen much faster.  They are the generation of
> instant satisfaction and some of that even rubs off on us older folk.
>
> 4.  Talking to someone over the airwaves is still pretty cool. You can
> instantly talk around the world if the right condx exist, but we can talk
> all over the world with our phones so it is not as amazing as it once was.
>
> 5. CW is interesting but he was surprised that we don't have better code
> readers.  While he would like to learn the code time is once again the
> factor.  They have so many other outlets for entertainment that it is hard
> to find time for all of them.
>
> 6.  Results take far too long to come out
>
> 7.  He proposed that all participants use a scoreboard type system.  Many
> of us have said this was something we need to do but have instead met with
> amazing resistance and a ton of excuses why people refuse to use it.  A
> system where everyone can check it out and see what is going in in the
> contest.  We are back to visuals.
>
> 6. Playing radio in the car driving is fun because there is not much else
> to do but drive.
>
> 7. He has his general license but he does not have the technical skills or
> electronic knowledge to build a shack or decent station.  I am not a great
> teacher especially to my own kids so I take some of the blame for this but
> it is hard to teach people things when they don't want to devote much time
> to it.  I feel a reluctance to even try to do something without having the
> proper knowledge.  A far cry from when I was young and tried all sorts of
> silly antennas and projects that mostly failed miserably but boy did I
> learn from those mistakes.
>
> That pretty much summed up our hour long conversation and I am no closer
> to figuring out how to sell ham radio and contesting to them.  I hope some
> will find this information helpful and interesting.
>
> W0MU
>
>
>
>
>
>
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