[VHFcontesting] Les: Dumbing down radio to the Nth Degree

[frank bechdoldt]

In some ways you guys are both right. However the guy (Les) smacking Gene’s article may have taken to personally.  All of on WSJT are using Joe’s programs and skills  to complete QSO’s otherwise less likely to complete.  Most of us are using well designed and well engineered ham radios for vhf weak signal work. The rest of us have Kenwoods and Alincos.  
 
Most of us with Amplifiers are using someone else’s skill sets to power antennas that for most of us are designed by Antenna engineers.  The skill might come from the choices of upgrades, operating times, locations and tenacity to get er’ done.  
 
I can take Les’s accusations of Gene saying that WSJT is dumbing down the hobby to the nth degree.  (I don’t think that’s what Gene meant.)  
 
In taking it to the Nth degree. I once used my backyard engineering skills to put pancake fans on my 400 watt TE amp and run her full bore into a stacked set of loops to make 1300 mile qsos.  Mathematically  I could of done the same with 30 watts and a 11 element beam. But in my pure genius I decided to radiate everything to find the meteors and qsos more quickly making qsos easier by having only one station wagging their beams.  So in the Nth Degree I am an operating genius using basic crap.  Therefore quicker contatcts could be obtained in contests if stations used loops and more power from cooled amplifiers.  
 
I think Gene is saying much of the skill is integration of the station parts you buy assemble and connect together.  Kyle Petty is no Automotive engineer, he buys his car parts from them. He's not much of a driver either, but thats for another Blog.
 
K3uhf

 

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