[UK-CONTEST] April 2007 Radcom letters

[Ian White GM3SEK]

Chris Tran wrote:
>Hello all
>
>April 2007 Radcom - I am disappointed to see that 3 out of 9 letters in 'The
>Last Word - Letters' are what I would consider 'anti-contest'.  The general
>attacks on Don G3XTT's calm and reasoned arguments are sad - also there
>seems to be a measure of interpretation of what has been written to suit the
>correspondent's point of view.
>
>I have very little sympathy for those who can't seem to make the slightest
>effort to have QSOs other than on empty bands. Their attitude seems to be
>that all contests are a disruption and that contesters are deliberately
>clogging the bands up with worthless QSOs.  The reality is that in 2007 :-
>1. Contesters are the most motivated group in amateur radio
>2. Contesters have to have a high degree of technical expertise to be
>successful
>3. Contesting has spawned many recent technical developments
>4. Contesters are constantly self-evaluating and improving their operating,
>equipment and antennas
>5. Contesters will persevere with operating under poor propagation
>conditions, QRM, etc.
>6. A good contest station makes day-to-day DXing easy
>

The antis know nothing about all that, because all they ever hear is the 
"59"  bit.

It's entirely up to us to publicise everything else that makes 
contesting worthwhile: the self-training and technical development, the 
pleasure of doing something hard and doing it well, and the strong 
world-wide sense of community. All that stuff... things that people will 
never find out about unless somebody TELLS them.

In that regard, I've found contesting to be a lot like moonbounce - very 
little may be exchanged over the air, but that isn't the point. When you 
work somebody whom you *know* shares the same goals as yourself, and has 
put in the same kind of effort, then a few weak dots or a quick "599" 
are actually carrying a lot of important traffic.

Don't ever let anybody dismiss that as "worthless".



-- 

73 from Ian GM3SEK