Me too, on both counts. In those old days I made BPL (Brass Pounder's League) several times, which required passing at least 500 messages an a month, and had some regular net control assignments on a couple of CW nets. K2VCO and I first met on one of them in the 50s.
Like Tommy, who I work several times in every contest, I take them seriously, and have a lot of fun. This weekend, six guys at N6RO, an all K3 multi-multi with a really nice antenna farm, made more than 1200 Qs on both 20 and 15M. Since US/VE stations can't work each other, that means there were at least that many stations on the air outside the US and Canada. I'd guess the actual number is a lot higher. The exchange in the ARRL CW DX contest for those outside US/VE is the TX power. Each year in this contest I work a dozen or so JAs who are running 5W, and I've worked a few running 1W. As to REAL signal reports -- if you really care, try using the Reverse Beacon Network or WSPR. Use Google to learn about them. Very useful if you're checking out a new antenna. There was also a nice feature about WSPR in QST a year or so ago. And as to ragchewing -- I find what 90% of passes for discourse on the ham bands to be somewhere between disgusting and exceedingly boring. And I think that's a big part of why so many of my ham friends drifted away from ham radio during our middle years. If it weren't for contesting and the fun of building a station and doing technical research, I certainly wouldn't have gotten back on the air 8 years ago. On 2/20/2012 6:35 AM, Tommy Alderman wrote: > In the early 50's I participated in a lot of CW traffic handling, which > provided me with some 'discipline' in operating CW. In my opinion, > contesting offers the same, but different, type of training. If you forget > about the non-contester hang up about 5NN, try copying 1000 to 2000 > different contest exchanges over one weekend and see if you don't learn > something. ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:[email protected] This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
