Author: Richard F DiDonna NN3W <richnn3w@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 5 Oct 2016 08:39:43 -0400
I basically gave up on Russia DX when I had my score knocked down because I supposedly worked stations that were "not in the contest". Not in the contest? WTF. I worked them; LoTW confirms I worked t
Author: Richard F DiDonna NN3W <richnn3w@gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 7 Oct 2016 00:16:52 -0400
I lost quite a few QSOs. For a number of years, the Russia DX was the same weekend as the Virginia QSO party. In the FCC database, my callsign was listed as being a Virginia address. For many logging
Author: Richard F DiDonna NN3W <richnn3w@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 2 Nov 2016 00:58:17 -0400
I agree that its a DX contest. But what does DX stand for? My recollection is that DX is a ham's abbreviation for "distance". So by that measure, where is the rationale in rewarding a QSO between Tor
Author: Richard F DiDonna NN3W <richnn3w@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2016 11:16:36 -0500
I have to say that I'm humored by the comments on packet. We're not talking about CQWW which drives the juices of DXers who love to collect entity counters. We're not talking about ARRL 10 or ARRL 16
Author: Richard F DiDonna NN3W <richnn3w@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 19 Dec 2016 17:49:38 -0500
I tend to agree with a lot of what Ken has to say. Like Ken, I'm in my early 40s - but was licensed since I was 13. Contesting to me has very little to do with "gaming". My son does a lot of gaming a
Author: Richard F DiDonna NN3W <richnn3w@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2017 14:10:26 -0500
Lets see.... W3DQ KE3X NN3RP K3VOA 4U1WB W3HAC To name a few... 73 Rich NN3W On 1/10/2017 1:25 PM, Jim Brown wrote: I have exactly the same question. Modern cities are a terrible place to try to do h
Author: Richard F DiDonna NN3W <richnn3w@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2017 19:26:08 -0500
For RYRY round up, sure. But not every ham has the equipment to run RYRY. I don't. Why don't we focus on what happens in NAQP since that is where the rule change took place. Alternatively, we could d
Not always. Single ops who are good will routinely dual CQ. This is not new news. 73 Rich NN3W Sent from my iPhone _______________________________________________ CQ-Contest mailing list CQ-Contest@c
Author: Richard F DiDonna NN3W <richnn3w@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 14 Mar 2017 22:41:38 -0400
I take some issue with limiting single ops to one running band. I've been in any number of contests where one or two bands are open and I am working to see if a third (marginal) band is runable. In W
Author: Richard F DiDonna NN3W <richnn3w@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2017 15:00:18 -0400
I think its a function of who decided to put in the time to play radio and who was serious versus casual. I can absolutely guarantee you that if K5ZD was operating one station SO-Unassisted and opera
Author: Richard F DiDonna NN3W <richnn3w@gmail.com>
Date: Sat, 18 Mar 2017 17:34:02 -0400
yep, happened to me many times... 73 Rich NN3W A good reason to not operate that contest, especially for those outside of Russia and Europe. 73, Steve, N2IC I don't have the numbers, but suspect it w
Author: Richard F DiDonna NN3W <richnn3w@gmail.com>
Date: Sat, 8 Apr 2017 19:37:42 -0400
Its a tough slog if you want to devise a contest that is predicated solely upon an existing format. Big stations who make it 44 or 48 hours are almost always going to win. If you want to change thing
Author: Richard F DiDonna NN3W <richnn3w@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 31 Jul 2017 09:46:03 -0400
I beat unassisted - handily. I think we are dealing with some selection bias - a result of the fact that many ops choose to go unassisted as opposed to assisted. 73 Rich NN3W But the statistics do no
I'm not in favor of turning Sweeps into a 30 hour NAQP. But I do see the utility of allowing more than one QSO. of course doing that will result in howls from various geographic areas that the playi
When I was throwing out ideas on improving QSO totals and activity level, I floated three ideas - all of which involved granting a second QSO. I've re-thought the high band v. low band split and now
Perhaps we're victims of our own technological success. As operators, we've gotten so good at doing things like SO2R that we've exhausted the pool of available QSOs earlier in the contest. A pool t
The ARRL SS CW discussion has died down now that we're a good few weeks past CW Sweeps. Nobody has commented on the huge number of '14, '15, '16, and '17 checks in the phone Sweeps. Others have in t
Author: "Richard F. DiDonna NN3W" <richnn3w@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2018 11:17:10 -0500
How about allowing entrants to declare up to 12 hours after the start of the contest? This would allow operators to recognize equipment failures, changing conditions, etc. For example, if a SOAB-LP(
Author: "Richard F. DiDonna NN3W" <richnn3w@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2018 09:39:31 -0500
This is a joke, right? Licensed hams use alternate callsigns all the time in contests - especially WPX. 73 Rich NN3W As to WPX, a 4U1 callsign is clearly an advantage in a Prefix contest. It does no
Author: "Richard F. DiDonna NN3W" <richnn3w@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2018 11:07:09 -0500
Actually, the World Bank rules may prevent AJ3M from using his personal callsign at the World Bank Station. Some clubs require that you use the club call while using club equipment. 73 Rich NN3W Not