Luc, Guess what? Contesters work during the week too. Many have weekends only for radio. So you get them engaged in their favorite activity on weekends. Why is this hard to understand?
They don't complain about the QRM but rather accept it as a challenge to overcome. I suspect this is also why CW/SSB and RTTY are preferred contest modes. There is a good chance for the human operator to make a difference and pull stations out of the QRM. They get really good at it too. You'll also find that these op's are quite technically savy and know propogation. Most of this is derived from years of station building and operating under highly variable radio conditions. Many of these guys run two radios simultaneously copying stations of one radio in the right ear and one in the left ear. Many can maintain rates of almost 200 QSO's/hour for hours at at time. This is why they are considered "good operators". BTW: I'm not convinced the "advanced" digital modes allow for the operator to make any difference in copy-- at least not to the huge degree it is possible with analog modes. 30M, 17M, 12M are contest free zones. I can't answer the age old question why people engage in activites because they are hard but it is human nature. It is a heck of a lot easier to scale the 200' hill nearby than climbing Everest. Some choose Everest. A note of caution to those trying to develop the next digital "killer ap". Be careful what you wish for. Assume you are successful and all hams switch over. You'll have the contest QRM environment to deal with. The will no little islands for protection left. 73 de Brian/K3KO > Yet, contesters creating maximum QRM are > exalted as champions and Great Operators > by the ham magazines and organizations. > > Why is a little QRM is bad, > but vast and continuous QRM is wonderful? > > As quite an avid (and now reformed) contester myself, > I'm very curious about this phenomena. > > 73 Bonnie VR2/KQ6XA >
