[Elecraft] Is ham radio a sport ??

[Lew Phelps N6LEW]

"Athletic competition" is a subset of "Sport".  Wiki offers the following:

"...sport can be primarily physical (such as rugby or athletics), primarily mind (such as chess or go), predominantly motorised (such as Formula 1 or powerboating), primarily co-ordination (such as billiard sports) or primarily animal supported (such as equestrian sport)."

I submit that contesting includes most of the above elements of competitive sports:
- physical endurance; 48 hours nonstop requires as much training as distance running;
- mind, for certain;
- "motorized" in the sense that equipment plays a crucial role in the outcome;
- coordination (at least for CW).  

If you include wG0AT, Steve, the ham who activates difficult peaks using goats to carry his equipment, ham radio includes all possible elements of competitive sports. See: http://m.youtube.com/#/user/goathiker?&desktop_uri=%2Fuser%2Fgoathiker



Lew N6LEW







Typos courtesy iPad auto spell check

Mar 20, 2013, at 9:18 PM, "Gil G." <gil at keskydee.com> wrote:…
> 
> IMHO it is absolutely not a sport. Even if you are on a SOTA activation, the sport you are doing is hiking, not Ham radio.
> Contesting is not a sport either. All you do is sit on your behind.. All that is involved in Ham radio is moving your fingers and maybe lips a little.. I can't even start to understand how it could be even remotely called a sport.
> 
> Gil