[CQ-Contest] Your Call?

[Michael Adams]

I love drinking from the RBN firehose.

>From my perspective, part of the attraction for assistance is the result of playing with different goals in mind / different definitions of fun, and in finding the challenge in other respects.

I love the adrenaline that gets flowing when the rate meter goes higher. Click-and-pounce yields a higher rate than search-and-pounce.

Yes, you lose much of the challenge of finding and identifying run stations, but you still have the challenge of answering the question, "how do I get this guy in my log fastest?"

While the adrenaline is what really got me hooked on contesting, I get the intellectual stimulation in a contest by contemplating strategy and tactics.  Do I run, or do I click? Should I try to get this station in my log, or should I move on? What's the most efficient way to work all these stations on my bandmap? How should I adjust my filters to get the most workable set of spots, given relative propagation and rx capability of my station versus the skimmers?  There isn't anybody on 10, but if I go up there anyway and run, will I be picked up by a skimmer and will others join me? There are two stations running here; can I get the synchronization to make a double-play possible?

I can think about those questions a little better with the additional brain processing power freed up from finding more stations to work.

Also, there is still the magic of watching propagation change during a contest, that thrill of stumbling upon a good mult before the packet pileup has started, and those happy surprises like "holy crow, I just worked an ultra-rare 2×2 GJ0 call!"  ;)

I can empathize that SOA may be less magical than SO, but the fun is usually where you seek it.
-- 
Michael Adams | N1EN | mda at n1en.org


-----Original Message-----

BTW, I'm not against SOA. I guess I'm just old fashioned because it's just not challenging to me.  I like to find stations and band openings on my own. That's more thrilling to me.  To each his own. If you get a thrill from clicking on spots all weekend long, more power to you.

Jeff KU8E