Yuri,
That's a rather harsh sentiment. There are many skilled or semi-skilled
contesters who for one of any number of reasons is borrowing or "renting" a
shack; for example:
-- Some of us are temporarily without a permanent shack because we are
renting or are in an antenna restricted area
-- Some are in college or otherwise away from school, and unable to access
the local club station (if any)
-- Some are on vacation, or away on business, or on a temporary relocation
away from home during a particular contest and wish to operate regardless
-- Some wish to try a new location (such as East vs. Midwest vs. South vs.
West Coast, to say nothing of a different DX entity) for a change of pace
-- Some have a sibling, parent, child, spouse or Significant Other who is
also licensed, and only one can use the home shack at a time
Yes, there are contest shacks available where the guest op doesn't have to
do more than show up, set up, operate and leave. But how many of them
really exist? A thousand? A gross? A dozen? Many of the DX/vacation
shacks that are advertised are not always available for contest weekends
(often they are pre-booked by the owner for his/her own use), and many
require the operator to bring some equipment (be it antennas, rigs,
whatever) with them. Further, many (especially those at particularly
pleasant resort or DX locations) are booked by non-amateurs for other
reasons too.
And frankly, why shouldn't some of these be available for rent? Take my
neighbor an hour or so north of me, K3LR. Tim & his partners & teammates
have invested thousands of dollars and untold hundreds of man hours on their
antenna system, their computer interfacing, and their station equipment.
What's wrong with Tim renting his contest shack out, if he should so choose
(and I don't know if he does or not, I'm just picking on him for sake of
this example) on a weekend that he won't be using it to try and recoup a few
of those dollars -- money that he can reinvest in his station, if he should
so choose?
A 30% penalty? Almost a third of your score? Because your borrowed someone
else's shack? Please. Don't we have bigger things to worry about, like
keeping contest participation up and improving our skill levels and fighting
the BPL menace?
73, ron wn3vaw
"I lost most of my squad over Macho Grande... Planes too..."
Ted Stryker, Airplane II: The Sequel
----- Original Message -----
Date: Fri, 2 Apr 2004 00:58:41 EST
From: K3BU@aol.com
To: cq-contest@contesting.com
Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] Self Spotting
In a message dated 4/1/04 10:58:01 PM Eastern Standard Time,
Cqtestk4xs@aol.com writes:
>>I and other big stations did not just "throw money at towers and amps".
We
busted our asses in research, scavenging materials, and homebrewed lots of
stuff. That, takes lots of skill. We then invested more in researching
past
scores to know where to put our efforts in a given contest. That takes
skill.<<
Mainly antennas, if you got no signal from antenna, no money or amps will
help you. As Bill says, takes a lot of skill, in addition - operating,
knowing
propagation, maximizing station, souping up lousy equipment but mainly
antennas,
antennas, antennas and knowing how to select, build and use them. True
contester builds and operates his own station.
Then there are "drive-in operators" who drive, fly, walk, swim into someone
else's station
and do it easy way. They should be penalized by 30% less points :-)
Yuri, K3BU.us
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