CQ, CQ Contest
Posted: Sat Jan 17, 2009 1:02 pm
CQ contesters
As a weekend rolls into place and Hams get the opportunity to sit at their radios. Many turn the radio on, CQ a little or work friends on schedule. If you listen you can hear many in the ham community still using the ham bands as their primary means of staying in touch with friends. Other times you can hear people making contacts with new friends to be. All in all the bands are generally busy with any number of Hams using the hobby as a means of getting to know each other better and to maintain relationships of long standing. This could be classified as Communication.
As mornings of communication turn into the midday there often becomes such a clatter on the bands that friends are forced to abandon these long held schedules and traditions to make way for what can only be described as the scourge of normal communication, CONTESTING!
Years ago as I started into the hobby I very often enjoyed listening to and participating in field day. Today, field day has become just another contest. Contests have become the cause of bad amateur practice. I guarantee that if you are having a QSO on 20 meters that you started at 9am and a contest starts at 10, you will be run off the band. You will have some thoughtless contester move in on you. And when I say move in, I don't mean that he will be 3 Kc away causing QRM that will necessitate the need to narrow up or notch him out, I mean that he will move in ON your frequency. Or 1/2 a Kc away, or 1 Kc. Contesters don't give a damn. It appears that the great majority of HF contesters use contesting as an excuse for abandoning good amateur practice.
I don't know when this became the case but I can tell you that the FCC, ARRL and contesters all, should be ashamed of what passes for amateur operation during these times.
If you are a contester for whom numbers and certificates are your major motivation and you are willing to crowd out other hams or simply don't care and want only to get that contact regardless of who is on frequency, you are the problem. Next time you are trying to have a QSO and someone moves in on causing QRM, Keep your mouth shut! Anybody willing to abandon good amateur practice simply to rack up numbers deserves NO quarter.
Craig
N7CAL :shock:
As a weekend rolls into place and Hams get the opportunity to sit at their radios. Many turn the radio on, CQ a little or work friends on schedule. If you listen you can hear many in the ham community still using the ham bands as their primary means of staying in touch with friends. Other times you can hear people making contacts with new friends to be. All in all the bands are generally busy with any number of Hams using the hobby as a means of getting to know each other better and to maintain relationships of long standing. This could be classified as Communication.
As mornings of communication turn into the midday there often becomes such a clatter on the bands that friends are forced to abandon these long held schedules and traditions to make way for what can only be described as the scourge of normal communication, CONTESTING!
Years ago as I started into the hobby I very often enjoyed listening to and participating in field day. Today, field day has become just another contest. Contests have become the cause of bad amateur practice. I guarantee that if you are having a QSO on 20 meters that you started at 9am and a contest starts at 10, you will be run off the band. You will have some thoughtless contester move in on you. And when I say move in, I don't mean that he will be 3 Kc away causing QRM that will necessitate the need to narrow up or notch him out, I mean that he will move in ON your frequency. Or 1/2 a Kc away, or 1 Kc. Contesters don't give a damn. It appears that the great majority of HF contesters use contesting as an excuse for abandoning good amateur practice.
I don't know when this became the case but I can tell you that the FCC, ARRL and contesters all, should be ashamed of what passes for amateur operation during these times.
If you are a contester for whom numbers and certificates are your major motivation and you are willing to crowd out other hams or simply don't care and want only to get that contact regardless of who is on frequency, you are the problem. Next time you are trying to have a QSO and someone moves in on causing QRM, Keep your mouth shut! Anybody willing to abandon good amateur practice simply to rack up numbers deserves NO quarter.
Craig
N7CAL :shock: