[NLRS] activity

Mon, 8 Dec 2003 10:30:30 -0600

Mark,

Sorry to hear that you are turning the switch off.  This is too bad.  Sad to
see you go.You are always welcome at the NLRS and the bands are open for you
and all amateur use including contesting.  If the NLRS does not meet your
needs, you could start your own club MBRVC (Mark Brown Ragchewers VHF Club)
and start a whole new movement to put more activity on the upper bands. This
is the beauty of this hobby; the sky's the limit!!! (pun intended).  There
is a huge amount of SSB spectrum on VHF so please respect 144.200 as a
calling frequency.  Mr. VHF in Rochester W0VB can be talk into a ragchew
almost any time and he has power and good directional antennas.  He once
spent a whole day talking to a bunch of Boy Scouts for a demostration I was
doing at Sterns Camp when he had a lot of other stuff to do.

Contesting will never be like it was 12 or even 7 years ago because there is
more activity now.  At that time there was basically me, Chris, Jon, Rich,
Jon, John, Bob, and Gary in town.  In those days after we all worked each
other, then we would all take turns working the three contacts per hour that
came in between twiddling our thumbs or chattering a little to keep the
calling frequency live and just like the '50s those days are gone.
Contesting by its very nature is just like running a marathon with arms and
elbows vying for the front,  the more people, the more arms and elbows
banging each other, not necessary intentional but it is what it is.  We have
a lot more arms and elbows these days.

"I couldn't hear you" is actually not lame at all.  If they have a properly
designed antenna like a couple of stacked K1FO's, they are like laser beams
which only see and hear from the front; it is very probable that you will
hear them but they will not hear you unless pointed at you.  I had an 10
element antenna that would leak in from the sides and back and I got rid of
it years ago.  I think I gave it to Chris and he redesigned it and made it
work correctly or it just sucked until he got rid of it. This is one of the
reasons we spend so much time on antenna testing, design, and theory at the
Aurora Conferences.  Please bring your antenna to the next conference for an
assessment and since there will be lots of Hams there,  opinions will be in
abundance!!  :-)

S. Earl Jarosh (ex. Steve?)
N0HZ  (ex. KA0VYB) No Hertz, No Gain
612-868-1313
[email protected]
[email protected]
www.moneycenters.com

----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark Brown" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>; <[email protected]>
Sent: Saturday, December 06, 2003 10:46 PM
Subject: RE: [NLRS] activity

> Contesting is NOT activity, it is an excuse for poor operating practices.
> People qrming qso's in progress etc. When vhf contesters go back to being
> polite like they were  7 years ago I might come back, until then the radio
> gets turned off. And the excuses like I couldn't hear you etc are lame, I
> can hear stations 200+ miles away off the sides and back of the antennas.