Hefty Ate

“Leche, it is time.”

“Time for what, Macho?”

“Time for us to return to the bands. With the sunspots growing weak, many have lost faith in the possibilities of DX.”

“How will we do that, Macho?”

“We have time before the great WW in the fall when the world can witness the greatness of Macho Cueso, so in the meantime we will take a new opportunity to demonstrate our DX prowess.”

“What is that, Macho?”

“We will use the Hefty Ate to work all the DX.”

“What is the Hefty Ate?”

“It is a new digital mode.”

“Digital? You mean fingers? Like cw?”

“No, it uses a computer.”

“Computer? So like RTTY?”

“Not exactly. The Hefty Ate doesn’t decode errors like RTTY. It is always accurate.”

“No errors? Where is the fun in that? Leche likes trying to decipher DSDHJCNWITRZM,QWP457NVL to pull out a QSO. Perfect copy is boring.”

“Leche, it is the way of the future. As spark gave way to CW, AM gave way to SSB, we must make way for the Hefty Ate.”

“But Macho, they say you can’t run more than 20 watts with the Hefty. What will we do with the amplifiers?”

“Leche, worry not. The Hefty is a weak signal mode. That does not mean it is low power. The QRPers are used to being weak; they think that weak automatically equals QRP.”

“It doesn’t?”

“Leche, you’ve been on 160m. You know better.”

“Si.”

“Macho, the word on the grapevine is that Hefty Ate will destroy ham radio.”

“Leche, is this the same grapevine that said that eliminating the code requirement would destroy ham radio? Is it the same grapevine that said that incentive licensing would destroy ham radio?”

“Maybe.”

“Is it the same grapevine that said that computer logging and sending would destroy ham radio? I think your grapevine grows sour grapes.”

“Macho, I hear there is now a Hefty Fore. How will that affect things?”

“We will have to wait and see on that one, Leche.”

“Macho, I am confused. Is Hefty Fore half as good as Hefty Ate?”

“It is definitely twice as controversial.”

“Will there be a Hefty Dos?”

“I don’t know. We have to wait for the Princes of Princeton to decide if we need it. In the meantime, we need to get our clocks synchronized.”