[CQ-Contest] Ham Radio Versions

[Wes Plouff]

(Tacking onto the improved topic name, much better than "America's Cup.")

To all the "ham radio 2.0" naysayers, wouldn't it help to see what N0AX actually had to say before criticizing it? The video athttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rLlQeAVb08  is Ward Silver giving a speech on "Ham Radio... What Now?" a year before the SMC presentation mentioned up-topic. N0AX talks about ham radio heading toward "version 2.0," but he never implies anyone should "get out of the way." He says instead to look at where new hams are coming from and not be complacent. Instead, N0AX wants hams to embrace change, embrace experimentation and embrace outreach.

Change is not all cluster spots and remote operating. I don't operate in contests using Hammarlund or SBE rigs, paper logging or strictly cut-and-try antennas. It's not likely many serious contesters on this list do, either. SO2R, SDR transceivers, post-contest analysis software, weak-signal digital modes, SteppIR beams, all of these are somewhere beyond ham radio 1.0. Yet I doubt many who use them are telling others to get out of the way. They're just making more contacts.

As for outreach, at Field Day, my local club made a point of putting lots of hams on the air, contest newbies who say "please copy" in every exchange. We also parked our GOTA station on 20 meter phone for most of the event, forgoing many points on a prime band. If we didn't do things like these, though, how would the curious get hooked on ham radio, and casual operators catch the contest bug?

New blood in the hobby is always going to bring new ideas with them. Ward Silver is not advocating anything radical. He is an ARRL guy, after all.

73,
Wes Plouff AC8JF


On Wed, 28 Jun 2017 10:44:31, Tom Osborne<w7why1 at gmail.com>  wrote:
> Probably a lot of us out there that prefer 'Ham Radio 1', where you
> actually had to look for  your own contacts instead of depending on
> technology to find them for you.