Well said Tom.
Gerry
VE6LB/VA6XDX
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----- Original Message -----
From: Tom Wylie
To: DX-CHAT
Sent: Monday, February 11, 2008 3:47 AM
Subject: [DX-CHAT] Re: Ungrateful
Gentelmen
This is one of my pet subjects. How I hate it when all you
ARMCHAIR DXERS criticise others who are out there busting a
gut so that YOU can tick a box on 80m or RTTY or whatever.
Why don't you put you're destructive thoughts to better
use. The next time they are looking for volunteers for an
expedition to a remote, stinking, hot-as-hell, flea ridden,
un-populated with no drinking water - Island, WHY DON'T YOU
VOLUNTEER TO GO and demonstrate to us that you are such an
expert in all things pertaining to an expedition.
Its not uncommon in the first two or three days of an
expedition for everybody to be exhausted by the heat,
antenna erection, lack of proper food and water (due to the
effort and time required to construct antennas), yet, there
are people who love radio and expeditioning so much that
even at the end of the working day, will spend a couple of
hours on the radio just to give the deserving (AND THAT'S
YOU BY THE WAY) the opportunity to have a QSO, even though
they should actually be in bed, preparing the the next day's
work. They may not be at their best as they become
acclimatised to the heat and humidity, unlike YOU who sits
in their air conditioned shack, sipping an ice cold beer and
grumbling, about the state of the dollar, your sore back,
the fact that you have to get up at 4am to make a contact on
160m, the fact that the operator at the other end is a
little unskilled etc etc. How easy it is for you to sit
anonymously behind a keyboard and spill your stupid thoughts
to anybody who will listen.....
Everybody has to go on an expedition at some point FOR THE
FIRST TIME. Being at the DX end it a totally different
experience from sittin at home. I know lots of good CW
operators, who will never run a pileup nor be a good contest
operator but can sit and rag chew at 35wpm, read the
newspaper, talk to their wife and watch TV at the same time.
Its a different skillset and one that can only be learned
by doing and listening to the other operators in the
expedition.
There may too, be a language difficulty. Many people who
go on expeditions, may not have English as their first
language. It seems to me that sometimes even Americans
don't have English as their first language.
Yes there are a lot of problems planning, organizing and
carrying out an expedition. We don't get it right first
time, all of the time. Sometimes it takes just a small
thing to go wrong for the wheel to come off the cart. I
remember as a school kid being told a Moral of the battle
that was lost because a horse lost a nail out of its shoe.
Some operators will always be more skilled than others, as
are football and baseball stars, but according to MY ham
radio licence, I am taking part in a learning process where
I am self taught.
Someone in an earlier message suggested that you should have
a "banned" list. I can tell you now, that there are
several callsigns IN MY HEAD which I will never work when
taking part in an expedition. They can call me till they
are blue in the face but will never get a QSO from me.
I suspect that many of the contributers to this list are
also the "policemen" of the bands, the guys who sit and
shout, UP UP UP, split, split, split, and other equally
un-required and unhelpful remarks, and who cause more QRM
than the guy who has simply pressed the wrong button or
forgotten to press the right button, but will eventually fix
his problem.
So gentlemen if you have nothing sensible to say then better
you say nothing. Better to be thought a fool than open
your mouth and confirm it.
Just a final comment. When I was on T33C, we had TWO
operators who were 70 years of age. One has since been to
BS7H and he is currently on Cocos.
73 de Tom
GM4FDM (T33C, VP8SDX, OY7TW, TY4TW, V8FDM, GJ4FDM) to name
but a few.
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