[CQ-Contest] Santa Fe, NM Contesting

[Jim Brown]

A friend wrote to tell me that I had made some very wrong assumptions. 
If I had know what he told me, I would have had a  very different response.

=   =   =   =

 > I think you are off base here. As I recall, Colin is a rather young 
person, very low on funds, and a helluva contest operator. He has been a 
good team member of M/Op contest stations. Sure, building his own 
station probably is a goal, but your judgement seems a bit harsh.

=   =   =   =

Knowing this, my reaction is that I hope someone will take him under his 
wing and show him what life is like in a little pistol station, and, if 
his living conditions permit, help him put together something of his 
own. My station in high school and college days was a couple of dipoles 
strung between trees in my parents yard. My rigs for the first couple of 
years were a couple of Command sets for 80 and 40, first an S38D, then a 
BC348 that I bought with two summers of Babe Ruth league scorekeepers 
earnings.

Then I got very lucky -- a local with a Tech license who couldn't make 
the 13 wpm General test loaned me the DX100 and SX101 he'd bought but 
couldn't use.

Years later, from a small Chicago lot and a rental apartment, I actually 
won LP SS CW for IL one year. Antennas were a Butternut vertical and a 
dipole that ran from a corner of the house to a telephone pole in the 
alley.

This sort of small scale station is something every ham ought to 
experience. There's something very wrong with contesting when the only 
things that seems to matter happen are super stations.

73, Jim K9YC