Contesting is not video gaming. And, quite frankly, I don't see dedicated
gamers being fruitful ground for new contesters. For me, contesting is much,
much closer to stock car racing than gaming. It is the culmination of station
construction, engineering, design. It is learning through experience and
practice and sometimes luck in "reading the road", in our case propagation or
QRM conditions.
Contesting is more about how good a receiving situation you have than how fast
you can type (although I will also agree that typing errors are an issue for me
as it seems with others on this list).
If you want to see new contesters get interested, get 'm on a tower. See the
hardware, bring them to you radio and listen to JAs or EUs coming in loud and
"turn the beam" so that they can see the effect of the antenna. Give them a
shortwave radio to listen to a contest after getting an appreciation for "why
it all matters". Finally, have them show up at a M/M somewhere and see the
"pit crew" type team experience.
THATs what will hook a prospective contester. The gamer will comment that all
this antenna tower stuff is un-necessary since you can do similar things on
line with a computer. To each his/her own...that's why they will remain gamers
and not become radio contesters.
There is nothing quite like the satisfaction of working for weeks on an antenna
system and then hearing the "wow you are loud" response from far away. That,
my friends, you will never, ever get with gaming or on line simulation. And
that IS contesting.
73
Ed N1UR
_______________________________________________
CQ-Contest mailing list
CQ-Contest@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/cq-contest
|