[Elecraft] Sweepstakes

[Ken Alexander]

Hi Bob,

Contesting is one of the things I love to do that I'm
no good at...skiing is another and golfing's on the
list too.

Competing against yourself is excellent advice that
you've already received.  There are a few other ways
to make contesting more fun:

- Join a contest club.  You still operate at home on
your own equipment, but your score becomes part of an
aggregate club score.  The big advantage is that it
puts you in touch with other contesters in your region
from whom you can learn.  You'll see contest club
scores listed in the results of many contests.

- An enormously motivating development is online
reporting of your contest score.  The computer you use
for logging (you are using logging saftware, aren't
you?) has to be connected to the internet for this to
work.  N1MM Logger, and probably several other loggers
has a module that you activate that collects your
score data from the logger and uploads it
automatically to a score reporting website, where your
score is listed with all other participants.

You can check out the website and see how you're doing
relative to everyone else.  The first time I tried
this I got into a race with a ham who was a few
hundred points ahead of me.  I tried to catch him and
did after a while.  Then I could see that he was
pouring it on to try and get ahead of me again.  

We battled for hours for (something like) 763rd place,
but it was great fun because he was a reachable
target.  I looked him up on qrz.com and e-mailed him
after the contest.  He said he had his eyes on me the
whole time and was working hard to stay ahead. 

We both spent a lot more time in front of the radio
and improved our scores a lot.  It was also a lot more
fun, because after all QSOs = Fun.

Having said all this, I'll be darned if I can find the
website!  It's run by a W1/VE1 and it'll probably come
to me before long.  Maybe someone else on the list
knows and will jump in, too.

Hope this is of interest.

73,

Ken Alexander
VE3HLS


--- Bob Fish <rwfish at comcast.net> wrote:

> Hi Guys,
> 
> I, like probably alot of you, have been doing some
> casual contesting 
> this weekend. Once again, I am amazed at how bad of
> a contester I am. It 
> isn't my rig or antenna. I have a K2/100 and a
> decent antenna. When I 
> call someone they almost always respond after the
> first call. My cw 
> skills are pretty good I can exchange contest info
> at around 30wpm if I 
> have to, although I run between 22 and 25wpm most of
> the time. I try not 
> to get distracted, another words I try to stay in
> front of the radio. So 
> I feel as if I should be, at least, competitive.
> But, it happens every 
> time. I sit down, eagerly awaiting the start of the
> contest, ready to do 
> battle, and get slaughtered. Within an hour or so I
> am hopelessly 
> behind. After 4 or 5 hours it is a joke. after 8 or
> 10 hours every 
> station I work has 600 contacts! Some of these guys
> are averaging a 
> contact a minute OVER 8 HOURS! I'm not mad, I am
> just amazed. My best 
> contact rate was about 30 an hour and that was only
> for a couple of 
> hours.I usually run a contact every 3 or 4 minutes.
> So after a while I 
> get discouraged and start getting up and watching
> football for a few 
> minutes or something else and then I really fall
> behind.  I don't mind 
> not winning, but I am getting clobbered by every one
> I work by a factor 
> of 7 or 8. I have to wonder, am I really that bad?
> The funny thing is, 
> by the time the next contest rolls around. I am
> sitting in front of the 
> radio, eagerly ready to do battle.......The lions
> and Christians come to 
> mind except the Christian weren't willing
> participants.
> 
> 73,
> 
> Bob  K6GGO
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