I cruised by eHam for the first time in a long time the other day. As, I’ve mentioned here before, I left due to the low SNR and because the forums weren’t exactly, um, inspirational. There was one of the perennial Contest-Anticontest threads raging in the Contesting forum. The originator sarcastically “thanked” contesters for “trashing” the bands during the CQ WW CW contest last weekend. I skimmed through the bashing from both sides until I got to a poster who said, “Thank you, contesters, for giving me some contacts.”
You’re quite welcome! This guy knows what’s up. He’s new to HF and had a terrible time making contacts outside of contests. A lot of us started out in his shoes. Honestly, when I first got on HF at 14, I didn’t feel like I had anything to say to older people on the radio—that’s why I left repeaterland. Now that I’ve done some stuff, that’s different…but, I still like contesting. Over the past five years, I’ve found friends that I’ve operated, built antennas, strategized, or just plain shook hands with. Some of the most interesting people I know are contesters. Tell me that ’59’ contacts are impersonal!
This is a great hobby. Life is too short to bash any of your fellow hams!
