I sincerely appreciate my friend Pete N4ZR's advice on how to attract the
casual Skimmer ops come Sundays. Recently Pete called me "arrogant", which,
by any reasonable standards, I probably am. But still it was probably the
nicest name anyone called me that day.
A couple of quick comments, if I may:
(1) As I sometimes say, "you need to get out more". I do NOT always end
each QSO with my callsign. I have three F-keys programmed: CALL TU
dit-dit, and I use them all. By the way, I don't use the last nearly
enough, but when I do, it's really effective and amazing how the sharp ops
in the pile-up pick it up. Expect to hear more of it from 9Y4W this
November. As to my sometimes rolling with just the CALL, I learned that
from my idol KH6IJ, and I can probably come-up with a few worst standards to
emulate. It does three things: (1) acknowledge the QSO, (2)
identification, and (3) QRZ? And in these days of too many going too long
without ID, I'd much rather have the reputation of being "pile-up
friendly". Another thing I've learned, the more frequent I ID, the bigger
the pile-up. It's an amazing dynamic.
(2) At this stage of my contesting career, spanning I guess 57 years now, I
am definitely realizing my best years are in my rear-view mirror. But hey,
at the (trust me, advanced) age of 73, I was still able to break the world
record in last February's ARRL DX CW, but regrettably came in No. 2 to my
good friend at FY5KE. The arrogant side of me says: "if you can do that,
then please go out on the DX-end and show us what you got". And send me a
post-card. I've won more than my share, and lost even many more than my
share. At this age, I seriously couldn't care less if I ever win again, but
thanks for thinking of me, Pete.
(3) I don't know, in this world of instant gratification, everyone's got an
opinion. It needs to be polite. It needs to be politically correct. It
needs to be tightly controlled. If we're not employing the latest
technology, we're dinosaurs. People do little to promote what made DXing
and contesting great in the first place: OPERATOR SKILLS. Remember them?
How to find DX. How to copy SSB and CW in the most rigorous of
communication environments. How to to know where to find whom and when.
How to know who you can move to another band, and when to ask. How to beat
the other guy out in a pile-up. How to listen, listen, listen. What set us
to be the Best in the World communicators.
Did you watch the 1500M races in the Olympics? You think these
(real-world) athletes are worrying about playing nice as they're elbowed and
jostled going around the track? Uh, keep your elbows in? Give me room.
Don't go "split"?? NOPE. And these are real athletes, we're just amateurs.
In my opinion, if you want to play patty-cake, get your wife to take you to
her Saturday afternoon tea party. If you want to contest: man-up. This is
serious stuff. Dog eat dog. Go split. Be arrogant.
Vy 73,
Jim Neiger N6TJ
--------------------------------------------------
From: "Pete Smith N4ZR" <n4zr@contesting.com>
Sent: Tuesday, August 28, 2012 2:11 PM
To: "Ward Silver" <hwardsil@gmail.com>; "CQ Contest"
<cq-contest@contesting.com>
Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] Split operation in CQ WW CW
Hey Doc, that's fine if you take other measures to avoid being spotted
by a Skimmer, but if you're in fact being spotted on the RBN, doing that
will simply cause you to be re-spotted much more often than Skimmer's
normal 10-minute limit. Talk about unintended consequences!
N6TJ needn't worry - all he has to do is do what he's always done, end
each QSO just with his callsign. Of course, he may miss a lot of casual
ops that way, but nothing's free in the Magic Kingdom. Perhaps, dare I
suggest, he will want to start sending Skimmer's key words on Sunday,
when things slow down.
73, Pete N4ZR
The World Contest Station Database, at www.conteststations.com
The Reverse Beacon Network at http://reversebeacon.net, blog at
reversebeacon.blogspot.com,
spots at telnet.reversebeacon.net, port 7000 and
arcluster.reversebeacon.net, port 7000
On 8/28/2012 4:30 PM, Ward Silver wrote:
Dither your transmitting frequency, as well - move it back and forth a
couple hundred hertz with each QSO. Not so much that the pileup moves
with
you but enough to spread out your spot signature. Program it into a
macro
key or something.
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