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Speak Out: Lighten up guys!

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vu3pai on 2002-04-02
Let us see Later at present no opinion.

Anonymous on 2002-03-13
M/S in WPX from the 80s: anonymous contester (not me): "QRZ contest, listening 7310"

Anonymous on 2002-03-13
Field Day about 20 years ago. It was a club effort and we took the club's HWxxx along. Uped antenna's and started the contest. Worked a few, but wasn't too concerned that not getting a lot of Q's in the log as there didn't seem to be many ops on the air. About 3 hours later, I happened to walk around to the back of the rig to tidy up when I discovered that the RX antenna switch was set for an EXTERNAL RX antenna. Lotsa RF going out... very little coming in!
de Jerry/k6iii
San Jose, CA

ZC4BS on 2002-02-22
My biggest mistake was in my 2nd ever contest in the CQWW SSB 1991 contest.

I made several thousand QSO's in the low power all band category and decided to finish 23hours into the contest not realising I had already broken the world Low Power record (at that time) and may have kept it for a few more years following if I had continued <grin !>

That was at the time when the sun spot cycle was at its peak and ZC4 was still in the Top 50 most wanted.

Only myself to blame on the contest .... and the Top 50 slippage come to think of it heh heh

Great fun though

Steve ZC4BS G4KIV ZD8SB N5ZFR ZC4BBS

Anonymous on 2002-02-15
I was operating cw on 20m late last year (2001) just before one of the phone contests. I heard a ssb station just below be so I tuned down .. A W3 was apparently putting his station through all the paces with its automated voice features ... I switched from cw to ssb and nicely suggested he might want to consider qsy'ng up a little ... He asked me why and I explained he was at the bottom of the cw band .. He then ask, to my surprise, for my callsign .. I replied that I was illegally operating ssb at the bottom of the cw band and wasn't giving my callsign for any qsl's... He chuckled and qsy'd ..

NW5E on 2002-02-13
There has been a great deal of comment regarding the ARRL's proposal to eliminate the contest results and lengthy discussion on the subject from QST. There has also been a lot of comment about the supposed survey that K1ZZ mentioned in the on page 9, first sentence of the second to last paragraph of the "It Seems to Us..." editorial in the March 2002 issue of QST. I like many others have never seen or heard of any such survey. Had we been surveyed the results I assure you would be much different.

Many of us have expressed our concerns via email to the Division Directors and Vice Directors concerning the matter. As usual the only response comes from the Vice Director. I guess I should expect an answer from Frank Butler as he has never responded to anything in the past that I have sent him, why would things change now.

I am deeply concerned over the direction that the ARRL seems to be heading and find it more and more difficult to continue supporting an organization that I neither agree with nor do I feel supports the activities that I enjoy in this hobby.

Gary Vest NW5E

EA1CXH on 2002-02-09
It was on a expedition to a Houselight, it was my first one so I decided to be on the air all 48h. All was ok for the first 24 hours, but then I started to get sleepy.. I was running autocq feture on the CT so eventhough I was sleeping the computer was cqing on 80M..
The funny stuff is that when someone answered the CQ, I completed each QSO so that nigh I got about 150 QSO between dream and dream... It was surprising to find on the morning that we have so many QSO on 80, and the most funny was that I did´nt remember when te QSO´s where made... (all of them where correct btw...)

EA1CXH - Shawn

WN3VAW on 2002-02-06
Back in the mid-80's, when I was a member of the Steel City ARC, I was helping to operate W3KWH during Field Day. There were several muffin fans scattered around the operating positions to help keep things cool -- even with the windows open in the clubhouse, it got awfully hot in the summer (I understand that they're going to be installing AC in the building this year!). During a small pileup, I was reaching for something (I think a replacement for a dropped pencil) when I accidently stuck a finger in one of the fans and got cut. I told the station I was working that I had to QRX for a moment to get a band-aid, as I was bleeding over the log sheets. Sure enough, I had three stations call "One More Contact!"

LZ1ABC on 2002-02-06
stupid SPLIT!

A few days ago i heard VP8GEO on 7mhz cw(he was weak then).
I tuned my v-beam picked a split freq.(vfo2) and started calling.
But on his freq. there was one constant QSY, QSY...lid and so on.
I was wondering who was that idiot until one OP. specified lz1abc pig.
Oh my god i havent turned the SPLIT func. on!!!!
sri sri sri.
Then after calling for about 5min. UP fm VP8GEO I decided to see if there is anything else interesting on 7mhz.
Nothing. I am back to VP8 freq.
Again calling. And again a bunch of op sending: ABC QSY- on the VP8 freq.
Well thats bad luck- again the split not turend on!
After calling again for 5min i decided
that obviously this was not the day for VP8 on 40m.

I whent to 30m:
QRL? QRL??
no? well then:

cq cq cq dx de lz1abc lz1abc k
cq cq cq de de lz1abc lz1abc k

HEY?!! why my SWR is so high.
TUUUUUUUUUU>.................NNNNNNNEE
well thats better!

cq cq cq dx de lz1abc lz1abc k
cq cq cq dx de lz1abc .....and then i was deep into the ground::: my SPLIT was ON!

when i pushed the button for second VFO
it seemed like all the band was swearing me!! I was Transmiting on VP8 freq!!!

At that time i was using my 756PRO that have both VFO's displayed on the monitor:)
well maybe i was a little tired then.

Chav/lz1abc

K7UQT on 2002-02-03
Even though this has been been told twice in national magazines (by the person at the other end), I'll admit it. It was my first contest, the Wisconsin QSO party, and I had no idea what I was doing. My soon-to-be OM sat me down on 80m phone, found me a frequency, and said "Just keep chatting until the contest starts." So, that's what I did. I was having a great time talking with friends and waiting for the contest to start. Count down to less than to two minutes to go, and one of the guys commented, "This is a great frequency--I think I'll keep it." I freaked. It was my frequency, and I had no idea what to do. So, I turned around and yelled "Mike, what do I do? Steve wants my frequency!" He replied "Tell Steve to GO AWAY!" So I did. I didn't realize until after the fifteen or so guys who were listening stopped laughing at me that I had had the mic keyed with my foot during the entire exchange.

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