Hmmmm
Sorry you have no respect for all contesters
I am sure there are at least a few contesters that have zero repect for you
However the majority of both groups respect others
and I would hope you will not stereo type all contesters that want to play
two or three times a year in their favorite contest
Many of us do not have leasure time 14/7 365 dyas a year and therefore we
pick a contest or two to play hard in
does that make us bad in your mind ????
By the way should a marintime vessel really rely only on amateur
communications ???
cheers!
Steve
KG5VK
On Tue, Nov 30, 2010 at 2:12 PM, DK Card <weatherdeck@persona.ca> wrote:
> Good afternoon,
>
> My name is Doug Card, callsign VO1DD. During the contest period ,
> specifically Sunday on or about 1235Z , our maritime mobile net was
> involved
> with a vessel who had declared an emergency on a frequency of 14.122.50.
> This is a frequency used by the Mississauga maritime mobile net which is on
> 24/7 @ 1245Z. This vessel had been having difficulty for a few days.
> Conditions continued to deteriorate for this vessel. We were working the
> vessel and taking important information from the captain at the time. All
> was well until a station involved in the contest came on to the frequency
> and started to call CQ contest.
>
>
>
> I am primarily a CW op and was able to clearly copy the callsign, DD4B ,
> which apparently is a contest station in Bonn , Germany. I asked on SSB
> for
> him to please respect the situation and to please give us a clear frequency
> to operate. I asked several times as he continued to call CQ test. His
> signal here was very strong. I switched to CW and still got no response and
> the interference continued. He continued and started to draw other contest
> stations to the frequency which of course caused even more interference.
> If
> he heard me and still blatantly ignored the situation he is not a true ham
> operator as far as I'm concerned. Ham radio exists because of its public
> service element and when a contest interferes with the ability of hams to
> do
> that service , I have serious problems with ham radio being used as a
> contest medium especially if they only "come out to play" for contests as
> apparently many operators do. I have no problem with that as long as they
> are aware that there are a lot of us out there who spend considerable
> operating time in public service and deserve to be respected as well
>
>
>
> That far up in the band is not primarily a CW portion of 20 mtrs although I
> am well aware that CW is legal anywhere in the ham bands. Again I am
> primarily a CW op and as such am very careful when operating on CW in the
> phone portion of the band (which does not happen often). I can appreciate
> that the station likely had his filtering narrowed right down and could not
> read my sideband signal clearly. However he was technically in the phone
> portion of the band and should have been more aware of the possibility that
> emergency traffic might exist. Hopefully he was not using a code reader.
>
> I was running 650 watts to the antenna and I am sure he would have been
> able
> to hear me if not so focused on scoring points!. I am well aware that CW
> contesting is not the way it used to be with keyboards/computers used for
> sending as well as decoding.
>
>
>
> The situation was very serious and could have turned out very badly ending
> in a possible loss of a vessel at sea. For this reason as far as I'm
> concerned , during contests stations should be limited to the CW sub-bands
> so that the possibility of another incident like this occurring is
> minimized
> as most vessels on the high seas use SSB communications.
>
>
>
> This incident has certainly done nothing to enhance my feelings about
> contesting. I'm always told that contesting makes better operators. If
> this incident is an example of that , that reasoning holds no credence.
>
>
>
> 73
>
> Doug Card VO1DD
>
> Hearts Delight ,Newfoundland
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> CQ-Contest mailing list
> CQ-Contest@contesting.com
> http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/cq-contest
>
_______________________________________________
CQ-Contest mailing list
CQ-Contest@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/cq-contest
|