[CQ-Contest] Observations of a young ham

[Joe]

But  I think we may be comparing apples and oranges some here also.

Amateur Radio, and Contesting are totally two different animals. Yes 
they both use Amateur Radio and talking to people as the ultimate base. 
But the bottom line is the activity of either has a complete different 
feel and totally different experience!

Contesting in general in the Amateur Radio community has well, a bad 
reputation. You all know about the complaints and jokes about

"Yeah they build skills" "Yeah it takes a real lot of skill to yell 
you're 59 for 24 hours"

And Honestly to the non-contester outsider, Think about it, is that not 
what it looks like to anyone that does not know the details?

Thing is, it happens like 90% of the time, And usually at the picnic 
type of Field Days,
If I finally get a die hard anti contest person actually to sit down in 
front of the radio, and explin to them what the goal is, and what is 
happening, why it's happening and how to make it happen here.

90% of them have fun smiling soon thereafter and are there for hours. 
And some actually come to me later and say they Admit it. They hated it 
because mainly they did not understand it, and like most people, if you 
do not understand something, that makes you avoid it, and even 
eventually hate it.

Our main goal and problem is to somehow rid the stigma of us being loud 
brain dead you're 59 idiots and show them how it really is a hard skill 
that can be learned, be rewarding, and actually FUN!

It Has to be FUN! Otherwise maybe we are all brain dead to listen to 
these terrible sounding sounds and do it for 48 hours!?

Sounds pretty brain dead doesn't it?

Joe WB9SBD
On 12/19/2016 2:08 PM, Jack Haverty wrote:
> The observations by and about young hams are right on target.  I think
> it's part of a bigger picture though.  There are plenty of not-so-young
> hams that fit the same description - they don't feel they have any
> chance of winning the game, and have found that "competing" in the role
> of a duck in the shooting gallery simply isn't much fun.