[High-Speed-CW] High-Speed-CW Digest, Vol 38, Issue 1

[Barry]

The Russians don't even try to hide the fact that many competitors 
aren't "real" hams:  they have consecutive callsigns.
Barry W2UP


On 4/28/2011 12:16 PM, Fabian Kurz wrote:
> Hello Bob,
>
> On Thu, Apr 28, 2011 at 04:34:36PM +0000, rgrubic at aol.com wrote:
>> "But the Belarussian competitors cannot be compared with "normal" hams,
>> or even the other serious competitors at the HST (from Russia,
>> Romania) because they do it professionally, and they _only_ practice
>> to send code groups. Plain text or QSOs are absolutely not within
>> their skill sets."
>>
>> Can you please elaborate? Where is Morse code still used professionally?
> HST is considered a sport in several former Soviet countries and
> enjoys a good reputation and support from their governments. For example
> in Belarus, the DOSAAF [1] has a "radiosport" section with subsections
> for ARDF and HST [2]. While most of the younger competitors are still
> students, some of the trainers are actually doing it as their jobs;
> both training the newcomers and taking part in the competitions.
>
> These guys from EW all have a callsign, but most of them can never be
> heard on the bands because they are only interested in HST
> competitions, and within that they excel in the classic disciplines,
> transmission and reception of code groups.
>
> In Russia it is similar, as far as I know a few of the competitors are
> also employed as teachers for radiosport, but there are also some
> "real hams" among the Russian team, which regularly show up on the
> bands (mostly in contests).
>
> 73
> Fabian DJ1YFK
>
> [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOSAAF_%28Belarus%29
> [2] http://www.dosaaf.gov.by/sport/radiosport/radiotelegraphy/
>

-- 

Barry Kutner, W2UP             Lakewood, CO