[TenTec] Just an observation

[Don Jones]

Jim,
This past weekend I sat in on one of those "Please copy..." rag chewers at
the mic doing exactly that - then his dentures fell out. It was funnier than
hell. 
I went back to where I belonged... the CW tent!
We used my OMNI VI opt 1 for the CW station at W7PIG (3A WWA). My VI has the
CW roofing filter mod from INRAD installed. We had 250 ft between the SSB
Tower and the CW Tower. The CW tri-band Yagi was looking right up the rear
of the SSB tri-band yagi (with a HF tri-plexer). We were able to operate
with two stations (CW & SSB) on the same band at the same time. It worked
flawlessly.
The SSB stations had my TS-590 and another guy's IC-756 ProII. These radio's
held up fine too. The FT-857's got blew off the air by the CW/Dig Station
when operating on the same band.
I ran a little over 700 qso's on CW with 17 hrs of air time, lost 5 hrs to
digital, they came very close to the goal of 30 qso's per hour. They were a
IC-756 non-pro on that rig. 
Overall I may be changing my mind on selling my Omni VI opt 1 - it did a
fine job and was a real warrior. 
I used a WinKey USB II keyer and N3FJP FD logger.
73, Don


-----Original Message-----
From: Jim Brown [mailto:k9yc at audiosystemsgroup.com] 
Sent: Monday, June 25, 2012 11:42 AM
To: tentec at contesting.com
Subject: Re: [TenTec] Just an observation

On 6/25/2012 10:09 AM, Robert Mcgraw wrote:
> There's two kinds of folks, "those that know what they are doing" and 
> "those that think they know what they are doing".

Field Day is one of those ham events where folks who haven't done anything
but rag chew on 75M since Field Day a couple of years ago come out to hang
out, picnic, down some 807s, and try to work Field Day the way they did 30
years ago.  Naturally, they expect to sit down in front of a radio that
looks and acts like the one they used 30 years ago too. 
And since they're old timers, they don't need no stinkin' manual, and they
sure don't want to ask anyone how to use the radio (or the computer).

FWIW, I'm an OT too, a very active contester, and I've used a lot of
different rigs over the years, but any time I sit down to someone else's
station I ALWAYS study what's there, ask questions, and ask them to sit with
me for a while if I don't know the rig, the antenna switching, or the
computer software.

If you think they're bad trying to figure out the radio, you oughtta hear
them on the air.  A NORMAL FD exchange on CW goes something like this.

Me:   CQ FD K6MI  (that's where I was)
Him: K9OR
Me:  K9OR 1A SCV
Him: 3A IL
Me:  TU K6MI

That takes about 15 seconds.

With the guy who hasn't been on the air much, it goes more like this.

Me:  CQ FD K6MI
Him: K6MI DE K9XYZ K9XYZ (at 15 wpm)
Me:  K9XYZ 1A SCV
Him: K6MI DE K9XYZ PSE COPY 3A 3A IL IL DE K9XYZ 73 GL (at 15wpm)
Me:  TU K6MI

And I'm gritting my teeth through 45 seconds when I could have made two more
QSOs with someone who knew what they were doing.

I've gotten to the point where I'm almost ready to delete any contact that
includes "Please copy" from my log.  Where do people come up with lid-isms
like this?

73, Jim K9YC.