You may be wondering want's wrong with that? Initially, it's prefectly fine, but on the HF (shortwave) bands it's wall-to-wall contesters almost every weekend. HF has sadly become like shark infested waters. All these contestors do is shout, and shout and more shouting. And all they are shouting about a signal report (which is more or less the same report - 5 & 9), progression number, and a goodbye. Meanwhile other types of operators cannot use the bands. Even as I was typing the draft of this blog, there was a dispute on 80 mtrs where contestors were walking all over M3/M6 foundation licence holders that can't operate more than 10 Watts. Luckily some high powered 400 Watt muscle stations (advanced licensees) came in to help them out.
The following video is from Burt K1OIK who has even more stronger opinions than myself. It's nice to see in the vid that not all contestors are selfish scumbags.
There are of course benefits in contesting. It can hone the skill of an operator, help in understanding radio propagation, fine tune the equipment used, and using frequencies that may be hived off to other radio services. VHF/UHF and microwave contests take considerable skill and patience as long distant contacts are much more rarer than on HF. But on HF many operators seem to suffer from that modern disease of arrogance, ignorance and greed. Walking all over anyone in their way just to get a bit of paper to put in a frame and displayed in their shack.
Is there a solution to this problem? Since amateur radio is well organised on a national and international level, agreements can be made to restrict HF contesting. The radio spectrum is just like the highways: many different vehicles for different purposes but we all have to share the lanes.
73's from Dave G7OPC
No comments:
Post a Comment