[Elecraft] Is ham radio a sport ??

[VR2BrettGraham]

W5TVW asked:

> TOO MUCH, especially on weekends! Shouldn't there be a small segment of
> the bands set aside for "non contest" use? Or would this be asking too
> much??

It takes the level of activity of a contest to keep amateur allocations 
free of over-the-horizon radar.

On 2013-03-17 - during the Russian DX Contest, one of few phone/CW 
events - I have only 65 entries in my OTHR SWL log.

Compare that to today - with about 6 hours left to go: 270 entries in 
the log already.  Sadly, that's typical for a weekday, based on about 
two months of nearly daily observation.

Within minutes of contests ending, I've seen the VK OTHR return to 15m.  
Contest activity can also push the OTHRs around the band - I've seen 
this happen with both VK & what probably was ZC4, working their way up 
the band over the course of a few hours, away from the contest activity 
as it increased as the band opened to a populated part of the world - 
and then back again as the band started to close down.

During the RDXC contest I also logged a LOT less of the Bravoland OTHRs, 
so activity is GOOD.  It keeps these nastiest of intruders - with ERPs 
of ~60 dBW across 10,/20/50 kc or more of the band at one go - away.  
These things are literally electromagnetic weapons of mass destruction & 
they're used on amateurs daily.

Is very clear from here: use it or loose it.  Amateur service activity - 
even if it isn't particularly your cup of tea - is better than 
radiolocation service activity in allocations where there should be no 
radiolocation.  At least IMHO.  Nothing else keeps OTHR away - only 
contests do.

I'll say this again - it would be really neat if the K3 had a predictive 
blanker for OTHR.

73, ex-VR2BG/p.