[UK-CONTEST] QRS Contest

[Andy Swiffin]

> I m-a-y not be right, often I am not, but I do think the
> concept of QRS contesting is a ludicrous one. Analogies are
> equally tricky, but may be useful to the novice. So, did
> Michael Schumacher learn to drive fast  by starting on the
> Nurburgring with everyone  zooming by at 100 m.p.h+?; I
> rather doubt it. Rather he learned to drive on public roads
> like the rest of us; improved his skills on a day-to-day
> basis. It then dawned an him, or was recognised by others,
> that he had a talent, and he progressed to the "nursery
> slopes" of motor racing. By the time he found himself in a
> competitive environment he was already well on the road to
> competence.

> ...

> Now it may well be that with the advent of technology, that
> it is possible to hone one's contest skills "off-line",
> without serving an apprenticeship as described above, but
> somehow I rather doubt it. To put some numbers to the


While I appreciate what Clive and a few others have said I think that
there may be some danger in putting some potential contesters off by
overstressing the need for such an apprenticeship.

While it's true that I did put myself through at least some level of
prior training in CW by adopting it for use in VHF auroras prior to ever
arriving on HF my current experience is exactly the opposite of what
some people have proposed.

I'm under severe time constraints at the moment (even to extent of
largely precluding _any_ contest activity at all), but my order of
priority for any radio activity has to be:

1) Participate in contests - particularly CW and data
2) General ragchew contacts.
3) Use the CW training tools.

1) gets the first shot of any time followed by 2 then 3,  if I were to
spend any time doing 2 or 3 that would certainly eliminate any chance of
contesting!

So my training has to be on the job and I have no problem with people
cutting their CW teeth in contests.   OK my speed has to be moderate to
be sure of copying sensibly so I run at about 18wpm and I don't always
get calls first time but what the heck!  

I've had some amusing experiences along the way - a couple of years ago
I had my first bash in one of the top band CW contests.  After a while
S&Ping I plucked up the courage to try running and found a reasonably
clear freq, I struggle if there are lots of other signals in the
passband.   I ran for about 5 minutes and had a few qsos then suddenly
the noise level went through the roof.  To me it sounded like a
convention of owls hooting, damn - it _was_ a clear freq, some DX must
have appeared and that's his pileup, nothing for it but to QSY.    So I
tootle round the band, find somewhere else that's quiet enough and start
up again, would you believe it, the whole damn pack appears again - am I
unlucky in choosing frequencies or what....  It wasn't until the 3rd QSY
till I realised it was _my_ pileup...   Well how was I to know that a
GM8 was going to be such a rare animal on topband CW? :-)

So my advice to anyone contemplating CW contesting has to be NIKE -
Just do it!

73
Andy
gm8oeg