I'll try to be succint here . . .
1. Good runs
Nothing in Ham Radio beats seeing the rate meter climb as the Europeans
or JAs come pounding in.
Whether it's from home, running 100W and a vertical, or from W8AV's
mega
station, what's better than seeing the meter climb past 100, 200, and,
once in a great while (multi multi, of course) 300?
2. A good time away from life's little annoyances . . .
Like the project at work that's overdue and over budget, the dead grass
in the yard, or the mother-in-law's impending visit. All that
goes away
when the 'phone are slipped on and the big switch is thrown.
And, even
better are the multi-ops, when a break from the rig is a chance to
swap
stories (and the latest jokes) with the likes of W8AV, W8WTS, KU8E,
K4LT
or others.
3. An excuse to build more gadgets for the shack
I treasure my time in the workshop, as much as do my time on the air.
I
can't recall how many CW interfaces I've built for NA, or how many
coax
jumpers I've built over the years, but there have been plenty.
Contesting provides the drive to constantly improve, hence the need
to
always be designing and building.
There are more reasons, but these are the top three. What a hobby
we
have. Even when we are working (and putting up a new antenna
on a 160
foot tower IS work, isn't it Goose) we still have a blast.
I certainly hope ham radio survives well into the next millenium. (I
figure I've got another 50 years or so left on this earth.) If
the
future ever begins looking grim for us 'amateurs', I believe it will
be
the diehards -- the contesters and DX'ers -- who will have to have
the
heuvos to turn it around.
de Gary, AF8A
de Doug, K4LT
Well, here is my installment of this popular thread.
As Goose has said and others, contesting has evolved with me over the
years from being an obscession, a serious interest, a major activity in
ham radio to a current passion but with lesser and lesser enthusiasm.
Part of the reason for my lower activity (beyond the obvious like "getting older; other things now important" etc) is that I have become less interested in "winning" and more interested in having fun. In many a contest these days I say to myself that I am quitting when I stop having fun. That is usually around 12 hours, these days. Reserving the FD, SS, CQWW CW, and ARRL DX, I have become almost exclusively a "play for a few hours" contester.
Winning is not what it used to be. (As if I knew what it was... I have never won anything except maybe when I hit the top ten in Sprint and when Goose and I won the world from 6Y5L) The rules have become more complex, the winners more concentrated in one geographic area, the hardware and technology necessary to win is out of budgetary reach, etc. Heck, it is so much easier to just have fun (and less expensive)
So, that is my resolve in contesting at this point: To have fun, and
that about sums it up.
I first started contesting in 1976 in the Bicentennial Sweepstakes
(actually if you count FD 1976...) as a novice and was hooked.
The contest station history includes multi-op contests from K8DG, WB8YSD, K8RT, N8FLS, WD8LLD, WB8KKI, K8MFO, W8AV, 6Y5L, VP5s VW FOC and FXB and operating from WD8AUB/K4LT with a number of ops including NF8R, W8RZ, W8AV (of course), W8TK, W9VNE, and others. As you can see, operating multi-op is preferred over single op endeavors.
At this point, I would like to continue my promise to Goose... to claim
W8AV as my contest home station and operate the majors with Goose and do
our best but always looking at maximizing fun. Some day, we might win something,
too!!!! I am 247 miles away from W8AV, but it does not deter me from the
majors. If I can do it, so can others who have shorter drives.
Heck, I believe the UA1-9 contest stations hold formal training classes
(this is AFTER you have your license) to hone the skills of the contest
operator and then drives many many miles to convene at (in many cases)
the ONLY station they operate from. They do not have the luxury of having
a complete HF station and 70' tower in their back yard. They don't even
have a back yard.
I'd love to go to Russia some day and operate with a local club. I'd
bring some vodka, perhaps even drink some. (After my 1994 battle with fish
poisoning, I have not really ever been able to do the 12 pack thing...
pbly for the better) We'd high five after a new or rare multiplier. Ring
the double multiplier bell and maybe tell some anchovy jokes. Now, that
would be fun.
Actually, I enjoy much of this at W8AV. It really is a unique (in my
travels) contest experience. There are NO pressures to keep up a rate.
The team knows what to do, and does it. When the pizza comes, sometimes
we ALL take a break during the highest rate into JA and eat together and
have a beverage. Shoot, Goose and I took 1.5 hours off at 6Y5L to have
dinner with Anita and Sue and still won the world. No problem, mon... they
told us. It wasn't... they were right.
After the contest, it is more fun telling stories about the rates, the interesting qso's, the clinkers, etc. than getting on 3.830 and pretending to be Messers Dorr and Duffy. They will not measure our success or write us up in their magazine articles for the degree to which we accomplished our FUN OBJECTIVES. So, who cares. In fact, of late, I don't much care if logs get sent in except in the majors.
So, in summary, I want to continue to operate with my friends at W8AV
and the MRRC and operate a few serious single op contests. But, most of
all, I am going to have fun... and when it stops being fun, I will do something
different. What I hope is that it will always be fun. Right now, I believe
that contesting will stay fun for a long time. There is a contest for everyone.
And with the sunspots coming back, 15 and 10 meters are going to be fun.
I'll be in there cranking them out and saying "howdy" to my friends.
73, de Doug K4LT
Independence, KY 15 miles south of Cincinnati
Well... here's my two cents worth.......
I think what attracted me to contesting is the competitive
nature and feeling of comradeship that exists
between contesters. I was always involved in competitive
sports when I was a kid so radio contesting was a perfect fit
for me.
Lucky for me, when I was an 17 year old kid a guy named Jim Stahl,
K8MR,
was my 'contesting elmer' and fueled my enthusiasm for contesting.
He was always there to help fix my equipment since I have never really
been very
technically inclinded to that type of thing.
Joining
Mad River opened the door to meeting some of the big
contesters is this part of country. There were guys looking operators
and I was young and enthustatic. Before you knew it I was operating
with people
like K8NZ/K8AZ, K3LR, and AC8E. I absorbed all I could from these
guys from
operating
stratagy to how to work on towers. In the early 80's I moved away
from
the Cleveland
area and to Cincinnati. I became friends with W8FN, which soon lead
to a invitations to operate from KS8S. We had a real nice period
in the early to mid
80's were we had some pretty good success from Dean's multi-multi operations.
It died down around that time and Randy and myself contested from his place
until 1990 or so when I hooked up with the W8AV (WD8LLD) crew. I have many
contesting friends from outside of MRRC country and on occassion have headed
east
to see how the good life is. The most interesting experience for me was
doing the couple
K3UA mountaintop VHF contest efforts. The crew was more what you
would expect
from a HF contest operation. It was great to get to sit down a get to know
the likes
of N2NT, KZ2S, N2NU, WW2Y, and others in the laid back environment
of a VHF
contest weekend. I have N2NT to thank for coining the 'Kuwaiti' nickname
and now
I have that I don't see myself ever getting a vanity call !!!
As you can see the social part of the contesting has been the big
draw for me. I never
really have been into doing single ops. ( except for SS and Sprints) I
have never been
interested in multi-ops that are so intense on winning that it took the
fun out of the it.
Lucky, the W8AV crew puts having fun before winning which suites me fine.
I value
all the friendships I have made with my contesting friends over the years........
Jeff KU8E
> > ----------
> > From: Bob Hayes <bob.hayes@usa.net>
> > To: KU8E@worldnet.att.net
> > Subject: Re: What KU8E wants out of contesting ??
> > Date: Tuesday, June 09, 1998 1:44 PM
> >
> > Nice history Jeff. But no KW8N chapter?
> > 73, Bob
> >
> Yeah I almost forgot ......all the years we
did SS phone with the
> octopus at KW8N.
> From what a remember we also did a few big
efforts in CQ WPX and ARRL
> DX too....
>
>
>
Jeff
>
>