[Hallicrafters] Contesting

[W5HTW at att.net]

Duane, et all,

As someone with absolutely zero interest in contesting, I make this
observation as purely my own speculation.  

It is my belief that contesting has evolved into another facet of the "work
hard, play hard" society.  We see the symptoms in the sports parents who
attend the Little League games, screaming obscenities at other parents and the
referees, even getting into fights, or going onto the field to attack the
officials.  It is a part of the 'driven society' that forces us to work 14
hours a day, and play another fourteen, and sleep four.  We have long since
forgotten about keeping up with the Joneses; we passed them years ago and now
we just have to keep up with ourselves, and that is impossible.  

It is also symptomatic of a society that has a "me first at all costs"
approach to everything.  There are, though I think they are a small minority,
contesters who value the certificate or the paper more than anything else in
ham radio, and they will go to any length to get it.  That includes lying and
cheating, for the paper on the wall is the end, and the means doesn't matter.
 Most contesters appear to be, again in my view, Type Triple A personalities,
the same ones who run five miles at lunch while drinking bottled water, and
who are pushed and pushing hard at work.  They carry that work competitiveness
over to their so-called relaxation, their hobbies, and unfortunately, ham
radio suffers.  I'd bet you'd find few contesters who also have somewhat
passive hobbies, such as oil painting or stamp collecting!  As someone who has
heard contests in ham radio for nearly 50 years, I see a really huge
difference in the way they run now and they way they ran before the driven
society evolved. 

There may be nothing at all we can do about it.  One approach could be to have
contests only on one or two bands at a time.  But there are so many contests,
and not all are sponsored by the ARRL, so scheduling is a problem. 

Also I'm not sure withholding funds from the ARRL is a workable plan, though
it may would make them pay attention.  There are, though, so many hams now in
our nation, and with the upcoming (I know - they are probable, but I consider
them a done deal) changes in licensing structure, granting many more hams
access to HF, I think the ARRL could quite readily replace members who abandon
it.  This may not be true at this very moment, but with the new licensing that
will (probably) take place, and the new push to get everyone in the world on
HF, whether or not they are interested, the ARRL will not likely be hurt. 

The bottom line is, if there was a solution, it would already have been
discussed and probably implemented.  I think it is something we are going to
have to tolerate, and gripe about, but our main solution, at least for the
near future, appears to be to move to the WARC bands during contests.  

And I think it will only get worse.

73

--
Ed Brooks, W5HTW
http://w5htw.home.att.net/index.html
Active since June 1956 Extra since
Jan 1970