On 4/28/2013 4:50 PM, Robert G Strickland wrote:
I understand and support the idea of lighter weight, more fun. That said, do we want to establish the 4# figure as "it?" Seems that anything under 10# is in the spirit of lighter/funner.
Seems like "anything you're willing to carry as far as you have to," often on foot and maybe in snow if you're a die hard SOTA activator, should be fine.
I don't know the weights,
but suppose I take my K2, an external tuner ['cause I don't have the K2 internal tuner], appropriate battery(ies), some sort of wire antenna, and a support [no trees where I'm going], I'm probably over 4# yet sit "light weight."
There are no FD "rewards" for how much you and/or your gear weigh. [I say rewards because if you get "points" and they publish "scores" it would be a contest :-))].
It's sort of like the 5W QRP standard. Why not 10w and
under? Why not 1W and under? Granted, it's unmanageable to have a "class" for every pound under some figure
Well, the QRP crowd, of which I'm one when doing a SOTA activations, seem to have made it work. Other than that, I think you're right, it's just an arbitrary number most everyone recognizes now, sort of like "low power" in contests is usually 100W or less.
. That said, perhaps we could
"weight" some "light" configurations and find the middle point, or some such figure, and then determine "classes" from there.
Try the Spartan Sprint. First Monday of each month. For tubby class you submit your total QSO's. For skinny class, you divide that number by the weight of your radio [everything between you and the antenna connector] in pounds. It's actually a lot of fun, tubby or skinny. Just haven't been able to get to it recently.
The vast majority of hams are male, and the vast majority of males have a "challenge gene" on their Y-chromosome. "What? You did it in five notes?, I can do it in four."
I gave up on FD a number of years ago, partly because one of my obligations usually conflicted with it, unless the last weekend of June wasn't the 4th weekend, but really because I was tired of the "old drill." That's no longer an issue for me, two years ago Rich, NU6T, and I did a dual FD and SOTA activation of Leviathan Peak. We had so much fun on the QRPTTF yesterday that I'm already thinking of a 4# challenge for FD. I'll bet I can beat Wayne.
73, Fred K6DGW - Northern California Contest Club - CU in the 2013 Cal QSO Party 5-6 Oct 2013 - www.cqp.org. :-)) 73, Fred K6DGW - Northern California Contest Club - CU in the 2013 Cal QSO Party 5-6 Oct 2013 - www.cqp.org ______________________________________________________________ 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
