I feel the best operators are those who started with poor antennas and low
power....because of a lack of brute force they were forced to learn finess.
They learned how to sense timing in a pileup and they had to know when the
peaks of openings were because they couldn't force their signals through.
They became smarter operators, with technique - not variacs!
Some of them continue to kick butt with wires...others have been able as life
has favoured them to add towers and beams to their arsenals.
If you want to be humbled, take a look at the results achieved by KT3Y, or
N2NT a few years back just to name two. Top Ten guys doing it with wires,
period. Proof to what the old sages have forever been telling those walking
up the hill....it is the operator that makes the difference.
If you create categroies based on the hardware used by a station all you will
prove is that the best operators will win. Huh, is this a revelation? I am
sure there will be those who will say that these stations cheated and really
had stacked monobanders, and there will be a cry for yet another category of
some sort.
Every year, at least twice or three times it seems, there is a request for
more categories here on the contest refelctor. I would like a category for a
station with exactly the compliment of radios and hardware I am using on that
given contest weekend, and the operator must be left handed and born in
Hartford, Connecticut. You see that way I can be guaranteed I win a category.
NOT.
If there is a desire to focus on operator ability and rewarding it, then
please do your part to support WRTC-96...that's what they had in mind. If you
wanna compare yourselves to these guys try running a similar setup that
weekend...no you won't have a one x one call, and you will have different
propagation but if yoou wanna try and come close to comparing your operator
skill this would be a good test....or is it that since there won't be a
certificate for you you just won't enter? Lame.
Do we really wanna measure ability or do we just want easily earned
wallpaper?
Jim K1ZX
K1ZX@contesting.com (single mailbox-multiaddress category)
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