[nrv-hams] Competing just for fun

[Kay Craigie]

I just finished operating in the CQ World Wide CW contest, and having
successfully worked a few stations that were very close to the noise level,
I was reminded of an erroneous assumption I used to make that no doubt cost
me some nice contacts in the way-back-when.

When I was new in ham radio, and especially when I was new in competitive
operating, I usually didn't call a weak-sounding station because I assumed
that if he heard my signal as lightly as I heard his, it was probably a
waste of time to try.

I was mistaken. Propagation does weird things sometimes, for one thing. For
another, some hams have special receiving antennas that hear signals much
better than they hear noise, so my 100 watts back then might have been fine
at their stations. Also, experienced operators have good ears and can pull
signals out of QRM and QRN like nobody's business -- maybe it's telepathy, I
don't know. 

I no longer assume that my signal won't be audible by a station who sounds
weak to me. Maybe so, but maybe not. As TV commercials used to say about the
Pennsylvania Lottery, you have to play to win.

73 - Kay N3KN