[Elecraft] Elecraft Net Announcement

[Ron D'Eau Claire]

Along with the additional activity produced by a contest is lower tolerance
for anyone not in the contest. 

I hate to ruin anyone's day, so I tend to hide on the WARC bands during
contests if I'm not interested in participating. 

If I don't, this is what happens. After listening around a bit, hearing only
contest calls, I find a clear frequency and call:

CQ CQ CQ CQ CQ DE AC7AC AC7AC AC7AC K

WHAM! About five or six guys all climbing on top of each other calling me.
Since 7-land is hardly "scarce" I'm pretty sure of what's going on. Anyway,
if I'm feeling stubborn I'll assume the best and answer...

K5XXX DE AC7AC GA OM TNX FOR CALL UR SIG FB 489 IN DENSE QRM - MAYBE ITLL
LET UP ONCE...

But about then: 

Didididi BK BK BK UR NR 72 599 NR? NR? NR? 

And so it goes. Everyone ASSUMES any call is a contest call. So I reply,

SRI OM NOT IN CONTEST SK DE AC7AC.

And immediate bedlam as other stations call me for a contest exchange ... Or
they're calling the guy who called me by mistake in the first place. 

I don't know that there's a decent answer. It's like putting a TV set
playing the Superbowl in the local library and expecting everyone to
whisper. Some things just don't work. 

DX pileups are the same, and expecting what we'd normally consider
"gentlemanly" behavior when a rare station is answering calls... Well, that
makes about as much sense as looking for a quiet seat in a saloon while a
brawl is going on with furniture breaking, mirrors shattering and bottles
flying. It only works in the movies. 

So I duck most DX pileups and head off to the WARC bands during contests,
not because it's illegal to have a rag chew on the other bands during a
contest, but because it's not really practical. 

I'm not convinced that more activity is better if it involves breaking the
fundamental rule of operating on the ham bands: Listening before sending and
NEVER sending on a frequency in use by someone else. I consider anything
within 500 Hz as "on the frequency" since a lot of ops don't have
super-selective rigs. 

New ops are showing up on the bands every day. How they behave is exactly
how we teach them to behave, and we teach not by words but by example. So
maybe I'm wrong to desert 80/40/20 meters during a contest, but it seems
like the thing to do. 

Ron AC7AC 


-----Original Message-----
From: elecraft-bounces at mailman.qth.net
[mailto:elecraft-bounces at mailman.qth.net] On Behalf Of Bill Coleman
Sent: Saturday, June 05, 2004 2:17 PM
To: kevinrock at earthlink.net
Cc: Elecraft
Subject: Re: [Elecraft] Elecraft Net Announcement

> But on contest days casual QSOs or nets are not allowed on the bands.

Sure they are. Casual QSOs are perfectly allowed. They may have to put 
up with a higher level of QRM because of the intense activity. If you 
want to avoid the contests entirely, you can go to the WARC bands, or 
60m. No contests there.

>  Seems rather harsh but contesters and DXers have priority over
> anything else.  If you could lead me to a chart showing where I can or 
> cannot run a net I would appreciate it.

This is wrong. Everyone has the same priority. DXing, contesting, 
ragchewing -- all the same priority. Every legal and legitimate use of 
amateur spectrum has the same priority. No different.

The difference is, during a contest there's a lot more activity. 
Activity is good.

Bill Coleman, AA4LR, PP-ASEL        Mail: aa4lr at arrl.net