[CQ-Contest] Is contesting an e-sport? YES!

[Bob Shohet, KQ2M]

Jack has got it!

The e-sport aspect of DX contesting could be AWESOME – if you have highly physically active and engaged ops and highly experienced and knowledgeable commentators who have competed at the highest levels and know and understand exactly what the competitor is doing and why and can clearly articulate that and what is happening on the band and who is being worked or “hunted”, etc.

It could be just as exciting as operating if it is done right, especially if two commentators could play off of each other.  Genuine enthusiasm and a sense of urgency in the voices and comments of the commentators would go a long way to engaging the audience as would the humanizing “ironman” aspects of watching a competitor deal with extreme fatigue, anxiety, confusion, fear, exhilaration and joy as he/she strives and struggles to do his best under extremely stressful conditions.  And that is just the operator.  Now add in the vagaries of propagation – including long path and skew path, geomagnetic storms, intentional qrm, contest qrm, qrn, wx factors, equipment failures, filtering of radio signals (with audio available to the commentators and watchers), maybe even a split-screen of neck and neck competitors, and you could have a real barn-burner of a telecast!   Who here doesn’t think that it would exciting when they can listen to a highly skilled op work 200+ hour rates on cw or 400/ hour on SSB with the location of the station worked flashing up on the screen and also appearing on a point on a lighted map?

Contesting has it all – EXTREME RADIO – it just needs to be packaged right with creativity and style and compelling operators and commentators.  If that is done properly, the tension, urgency, proficiency, speed, constant stream of unexpected events that must be reacted to (like a freq. fight, or intentional interference) and overall drama would be fun and exciting to watch!

73

Bob  KQ2M

kq2m at kq2m.com