Cheer up! There are still a few contests left where CW Rules! And SSB, too,
if you like to talk.
Since I don't "compete," I don't care if somebody uses an MFJ decoder, or
Skimmer, to read my call sign in a contest. At least that somebody is on the
air on CW.
What the new digital modes have really ruined is chasing DXCC entities. It
started when RTTY DXCC began and DXpeditions began spending time on RTTY
instead of CW or SSB, hurting those who had worked hard on those modes (or
on Mixed DXCC, for that matter).
I quit DXing. I got the Top of the Honor Roll plaque (mixed) 25 years ago
and that's good enough for me. I am close on CW and SSB but will never make
it now. Don't care.
Maybe someday, someone will Work Them All on some FT mode, never having
heard an actual radio signal.
I hate to think what the FT modes are doing to 6 Meters and up. Read QST's
"World Above" column these days: hardly any references to a signal being
"copied." Now, they are "decoded." The writer of the column talks about
"band openings" but these are "openings" for signals below the noise level.
The ARRL's "Contest Update" is leaning this way, too.
Jim Cain, K1TN
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