[Elecraft] Contesting

[Jim Brown]

Me too, on both counts. In those old days I made BPL (Brass Pounder's 
League) several times, which required passing at least 500 messages an a 
month, and had some regular net control assignments on a couple of CW 
nets. K2VCO and I first met on one of them in the 50s.

Like Tommy, who I work several times in every contest, I take them 
seriously, and have a lot of fun. This weekend, six guys at N6RO, an all 
K3 multi-multi with a really nice antenna farm, made more than 1200 Qs 
on both 20 and 15M. Since US/VE stations can't work each other, that 
means there were at least that many stations on the air outside the US 
and Canada.  I'd guess the actual number is a lot higher.

The exchange in the ARRL CW DX contest for those outside US/VE is the TX 
power. Each year in this contest I work a dozen or so JAs who are 
running 5W, and I've worked a few running 1W.

As to REAL signal reports -- if you really care, try using the Reverse 
Beacon Network or WSPR.  Use Google to learn about them. Very useful if 
you're checking out a new antenna.  There was also a nice feature about 
WSPR in QST a year or so ago.

And as to ragchewing -- I find what 90% of passes for discourse on the 
ham bands to be somewhere between disgusting and exceedingly boring.  
And I think that's a big part of why so many of my ham friends drifted 
away from ham radio during our middle years. If it weren't for 
contesting and the fun of building a station and doing technical 
research, I certainly wouldn't have gotten back on the air 8 years ago.

On 2/20/2012 6:35 AM, Tommy Alderman wrote:
> In the early 50's I participated in a lot of CW traffic handling, which
> provided me with some 'discipline' in operating CW. In my opinion,
> contesting offers the same, but different, type of training. If you forget
> about the non-contester hang up about 5NN, try copying 1000 to 2000
> different contest exchanges over one weekend and see if you don't learn
> something.