[UK-CONTEST] Contest Activity from G3's

[Roger Cooke]

Like Ray, G3HRH, although not quite as long, I was licenced in 1956. The G3's  had to pass 12 wpm Morse in order to gain a licence, and there were fewer on the air in those days. HF was the main domain, two meter was considered a white noise band, only accessible by a dedicated bunch and 70cms was a plumbing band with little activity. So, we were all programmed into working DX, a few contests and mostly all on CW.

   I was part of the GB4ANT team for a number of years and we won quite a lot of major contests with a multi-multi station. It would not stand muster now against some of the stations that are active however. I like the short contests too as I could not work a full 24 hour/48 hour contest and would not want to.  One reason that contest stations get such a bad name is that there are so many HUGE signals with HUGE arrays, and controls all clockwise occupying the main HF bands for what seems like most weekends of the year. They appear arrogant to the extreme, such is their enthusiasm, riding roughshod over those trying to conduct normal QSO's and this causes a lot of anti contest feeling. 
 
   I can understand that view and I don't know the answer ( other than to use the WARC bands at weekends! ) but to hear SSB on 7002 and CW all over the RTTY segments of 20 metres, then the reverse of course, RTTY down to 14050 and up to 14150 does cause aggro.

  Why do we do it? It's fun, competition among club members, keeps the amateur bands for us, and there is camaraderie for sure so I am not knocking it, just trying to lodge some reasons! After all, I still partake myself.   What I would like to see with the RSGB CC contests is a Sprint type of approach. If it's an SSB section event, you have to get on the band by abou lunchtime to "claim" a frequency. Using S&P is hard work and the Sprint way of operating would kill that and make for a much more versatile operation, mandating the big signals into moving!  

  And Hey!!  Who could POSSIBLY  forget His Royal Highness, a pleasure to hear Ray in each contest!!  

Regards from Roger, G3LDI
Swardeston, Norfolk.



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