It can be like trying to swim in a piranha infested pool - especially after
your exotic call hits the cluster. You are the only menu item and its
dinner time. The pile can be overwhelming.
73, Larry W6NWS
-----Original Message-----
From: Eric Rosenberg
Sent: Thursday, October 31, 2013 2:44 PM
To: cq-contest@contesting.com
Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] Whither Africa?
In what seems to be a previous life, the mid to late 1990's, I managed to
get on the air -- HF and satellites -- from both the exotic and less rare
locations: 9L, J2, YJ, HI, etc.
I never found much of an active ham community in these locations, with the
possible exception of 9L, where Dave, K8MN, was working.
What I found has that the resident hams (or expats, for that matter) were
generally uncomfortable or downright afraid of running a pileup. In
Djibouti, the local were rarely on SSB, as they felt uncomfortable using
English, especially the rapid-fire pileup version. It appeared to be was CW
or nothing at ll.
I didn't find anyone else on the satellites, my primary mode if
operating..Too exotic, too expensive, etc. Satellite pileups were quite a
handful, to say the least.
And yes, when in the more exotic (read: in the newspapers, not the
guidebooks), ham radio as my lifeline to home
73,
Eric W3DQ
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Wed, 30 Oct 2013 14:51:55 -0400
From: Tom Haavisto <kamham69@gmail.com>
To: Charles Harpole <hs0zcw@gmail.com>
Cc: CQ-Contest Reflector <cq-contest@contesting.com>, Chip and Janet
Margelli <margelli@socal.rr.com>
Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] Whither Africa?
Message-ID:
<
CAKNnRU4HqCj21rAw0OHLEK3eCZM607Mw6K3Zd48xnd2D-MS6WQ@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
Hi Charly
I think you bring up a good point that is being overlooked. I remember
hearing about a QSO from a friend who was chattting with a "rare" one some
years ago. To help put things in perspective for the rest of us, image
the
following:
You get on the air. There is an instant pileup. Does not matter when, or
what band you get on, there is an instant pileup. As soon as you are
spotted, you are instant prey for the masses. The expectation is you will
start running without taking time for dinner, potty breaks, family time -
whatever. Your whole purpose is simply to "be there". If you don't get
on
enough, something must be wrong.
After you are done with that, you need to deal with a mountain of QSL
cards
that magically find your way to you. Order cards from the printer, then
start filling out return cards. Some with money enclosed, some with IRCS,
some with return envelopes, some with unusable postage, etc. Then, you
need to find your way to the post office to send out the return cards.
If you had a QSL manager, you had to photocopy your paper log, and mail it
to him. He would then ship you boxes of cards.
Granted - things have gotten better over the years, LOTW has releived a
lot of the pressure for cards. But - some still applies. And - there is
more that is not mentioned here.
Sometimes it is helpful to consider what life must be like for the person
on the other end before we get TOO excited about lack of activity from
known stations, or delays in getting QSL cards. It can make the
frustration more bearable :-)
Tom - VE3CX
On Tue, Oct 29, 2013 at 3:03 PM, Charles Harpole <hs0zcw@gmail.com> wrote:
> What I hear "foreign" operators say about contests..... By "foreign" I
> just mean operators who are in fairly rare spots; of course they are
> residents, not foreigners, where they live.
>
> What I hear is that ops in these places 1. got their licenses for
different
> purposes than contesting or being DX, 2. want to use ham radio for other
> non ham -type goals, and 3. do not enjoy trying to ride herd on a mass
> of
> rude bad operators. They do not enjoy responding to QSL requests, paper
or
> computer data bases. They do enjoy an hour or two here and there around
> their other daily duties of relaxed chat and no-pressure on-the-air
> experiences.
>
> There are likely a majority of hams that are very similar except those
> other hams are in locations surrounded by many Type A contesters, and
thus
> their presence is not so much missed--although it would be great to have
> more casual ops to work. The "rare" ops think of contests as just a
> wall
> of noise, well beside the point of their goals.
>
> Believe me, it is very easy to get sick of scads of people calling while
> you are trying to work one. Many just opt out.
> 73, Charly HS0ZCW
>
> Date: Wed, 30 Oct 2013 18:16:15 -0400
> From: Richard F DiDonna NN3W <richnn3w@verizon.net>
> To: cq-contest@contesting.com
> Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] Whither Africa?
> Message-ID: <5271852F.10606@verizon.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
> This is more tangential to contesting, but remember as the DX station,
> you control the pileup. If you want to run a pileup, you run a pileup.
> If you want to talk 15 minutes to a station, you do that. Its your
> choice. I remember working ZD7VC a couple weeks back on 10; we
> exchanged the obligatory 5/9s and I said "thank you" and mentioned that
> this was our first QSO in about 20 years. What followed was a good 10
> to 12 minute one-on-one one contact. We had some attempted "break ins",
> but Bruce ignored them.
>
> Again, the DX station controls the pileup and if people are going to be
> so rude as to interrupt, they run the risk of disappearing from the
> log. I know one DX station who in his pre CQWW warm-ups did just that.
73 Rich NN3W
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