Good Grief, I hate competitions!

martinedwards

OK, if you want to have a competition, thats fine, the bands are big and there is a lot of room, but ALL weekend, EVERY weekend using ALL the bands?

I'm off work with back problems so yes, I get to play radio during the week when it's possible to have a chat on either SSB or CW on HF

but sorry, this CQ Contest poo that clogs up the full allocation drives me, and clearly many others, off the air.

by all means, have competitions but limit them to only part of the band, PLEASE!!!

gbee

No experience with the Ham bands, but CB gets taken over too.

eiei0

Wait until some of the big contest happen and then you will see how full the bands get,

Don't forget there are no contests on the WARC bands 30,17,12 and usually if theres a CW test the SSB sections are quite and vice versa,

Contests are a great way to work new countries that usually wouldn't be on and it amazing how good there RX is when the need you for points,

Contesting is one of the largest sections of the hobby,your not the first person to complain about then but don't think anyone will listen because it has all been said before,

watty

17m is nice "portable" with an 8ft whip when it's active. 5W to 20W is good enough too.

telecinesk

OP, Im with you. Nothing more annoying than contest nonsense all weekend.It has more or less put me off radio full on. Im licensed 12 years,and my last rig thats 4 yrs old has less than 10 hours working time on it.
Only mode I like is psk31, says enough?

brownmini

martinedwards wrote: »

OK, if you want to have a competition, thats fine, the bands are big and there is a lot of room, but ALL weekend, EVERY weekend using ALL the bands?

but sorry, this CQ Contest poo that clogs up the full allocation drives me, and clearly many others, off the air.

by all means, have competitions but limit them to only part of the band, PLEASE!!!

Ah yes... competitions.
Been there, been run-over by idiots with KW's not even a 'is this frequency in use?' once.

As a newly licensed EI, I was on 20M and 40M CW only for the first year.
When there was a competition on, me and my little power and slow 12WPM signal was just run off the bands.

At one stage some competitions ran in slices of each band.
But as usual, many of those taking part couldnt be bothered so that restriction died off.
Now if you moan about being run over by some idiot in a competition, you'll be told that you have the WARC bands to play with when a competition is on and I presume this means ''be grateful that we dont run competitions there too'.

And if that wasnt enough, the band edges are not shown any respect either.
Recently on 20M, I heard plenty of competition people operating on USB on 14.350MHZ.

I have wondered out loud several times that there should be at least one weekened every month when there is no competition on anywhere in the world.... I wont hold my breadth for that to happen!


So yes...I see and understand exactly where you're coming from but its been like this for a long time and it will not change.
Ethics and competitions do not fit on the same page.

73

gbee

brownmini wrote: »

Ethics and competitions do not fit on the same page. 73

Good post, funny thing is one reads testimony from licensed hams that they became licensed tog et away from similar bad practice on the freebands.