LIDS Field Day Plans

The May gathering of the Lost Island DX Society was starting to wind down.  The 807s were either empty or getting warm, which was the sure sign that it was time for the meeting to end.  Just before the president could call for an adjournment motion, Skinny Dennis stood up.

“Before we adjourn, I want to talk about Field Day.”

Silence meaning acquiescence, Skinny continued.  “Every year it’s the same routine. Charlie and I show up on Friday afternoon to set up. Four or five others promise to show up and help out, but nobody ever does. So Charlie and I sweat out the day putting wires in trees and setting up tents and trying to get the generator to crank.”

 Looking around the room, Skinny saw a few members discreetly avert their eyes in a sign of guilt. He continued, “Saturday morning we’re back at getting radios running and coaxes run. A few of you guys show up around 10 or 11 o’clock, but by then we’re usually about finished."

“Someone will show up with a big sub and a cooler full of 807s around noon and the crowd falls into it, between telling ‘war stories’. At 2 o’clock when the opening bell starts, it’s just Charlie and I sitting in front of the radios trying to crank out some Qs while the rest of you blather on.”

“Maybe around 3 or 4 somebody might offer to relieve us, but they usually get bored after about a half hour and wander off to see about helping with the grill for dinner.”

“If we want to have any kind of score, Charlie and I are pretty much stuck at the radio. By dinner 10 or 12 others have shown up to see what Chef Arnie has on the grill. After eating they all sit around telling lies about the DX they worked and draining more 807s. If I try to get one of them to operate for a while, they’ll usually say, ‘Oh, no, you got right ahead. I don’t want to take away any of your fun.’”

“By 7 o’clock most of them have cleared out and headed home for the evening. Charlie and I are getting tired listening to thunderstorm crashes while hearing the hub bub of the crowd enjoying their 807s behind us. But Charlie and I are stuck there the rest of the night trying to put Qs in the log while everyone else is sleeping in their air-conditioned beds at home.”

“By morning someone will usually show up and bring Charlie and I some coffee, but will they take a turn at the radio? Noooooooo.”

“By lunch some more have shown up with another sub and more 807s in a cooler. But by 1 o’clock they’ve all disappeared. At 2 o’clock when Field Day ends, Charlie and I are by our lonesome again, left to take it all down and drag it home where we collapse.”

Skinny Dennis looked around the room, where few would meet his gaze. He hoped he had shamed them into showing up and actually helping out this year. Just then the president spoke up.

“Well, I guess the Field Day plans are all in order, so do I hear a motion for adjournment?”

The din of movedsecondedallinfavorayetheeyeshaveit erupted in the room, followed by a quick departure of the membership by every exit available. Skinny Dennis was left standing while Charlie still sat in his chair.

“Guess I’ll see you in a couple of weeks, Charlie,” Skinny said as he turned toward the door.

The TRUTH About Hara!!!

Photo via WHIO.com

News out of Dayton Tuesday revealed that the aftermath of severe storms and tornadoes on Monday caused extensive damage in the Dayton area. News reports showed that the historic Hara Arena of past Hamvention fame was extensively damaged with roof and walls torn completely off. This damage has been blamed on the storms and tornadoes, but the Fi-Ni Report has learned that is not the truth.

The damage at Hara was actually the result of a post-Hamvention K9PG extracurricular Hooters party. K9PG and assorted compatriots still hanging around the region post-Hamvention snuck into the deserted arena and threw a Hooter's catered shindig that literally 'blew the roof off' of the place.

There would have been an investigation and, no doubt, criminal charges pressed if the damage had been done under normal circumstances. But, 'PG and party were spared embarrassment when a line of storms came through shortly after the party broke up and caused significant damage in areas around Dayton. When the Hara damage was discovered, authorities assumed it had been cause by one the storms or even a tornado. With all of the winds associated with the storms, almost all evidence of the 'PG led soiree was blown away. The only incriminating piece of evidence that remained was a hideously ugly green Hawaiian shirt which got speared on a roof rafter, the significance of which eluded local authorities.

Elsewhere, some long time Hamvention attendees viewed photos of the arena and were convinced that there had actually been some improvements made to the buildings.

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.”

Bad Day for Macho

Last week Macho Cuesew, the World's Most Extreme Contester, stopped by the Lost Island DX Society club station. Macho was obviously feeling very down.

"What's the matter, Macho? Another solar flare hit and wipe out the bands?"

"No. No solar flares."

"Well, what's got you so down in the dumps?"

"Macho is very sad. First, when they announced the team leaders for WRTC 2014, Macho was not included in the list."

"Well, don't take it so hard. There were a lot of top notch operators who didn't make it as a team leader. Maybe someone will pick you for a teammate."

"Macho already has a teammate - Leche Dinero. Macho and Leche were going to be Team Cuesew! We would win it all. We would be unstoppable - the World's Most Extreme Contester. And Leche."

"There's still a chance, Macho. There are those sponsored teams left to fill. If you can find a sponsor to pony up the cash, they could name you and Leche as their team and you'd be in. Maybe you could sponsor the team yourself?"

"No. Macho lost most of his money trying to buy an Alpha 77 over the Internet from a guy in Nigeria. And I still don't have the Alpha. I just need a little more money to pay the export registration paperwork fee. And the import registration paperwork fee. And shipping turns out to be very expensive from Nigeria. You have to pay for everything up front."

"Hmmm, does sound like a sticky situation. You said the WRTC was the first thing upsetting you. What else is wrong?"

"Macho is very sad to learn that the CQWW committee has eliminated the Extreme category. That was Macho's home in the greatest contest of all. It was the only contest that recognized the greatness of Macho as the Most Extreme Contester in the World."

"The WW is still the greatest contest on the planet. You just have to compete with the rest of us plebes now is all."

"Yes. I now compete with you puny ordinary contesters. Where is the challenge in that?"

"I see your point, Macho. Guess its time to hang up the tights and start hanging out on 75m phone in the evenings and relive the glory days."

DXpedition to Mud Island

Thanks to an earthquake on September 24, a new island has appeared off the coast of Pakistan near the town of Gwadar. The new island, named Zalzala Koh, is made of erupted mud, spewed from the seafloor when either gases escaped or subsurface water was violently expelled. The new island is approximately 576 feet by 525 feet and has an elevation of 60 to 70 feet. It is located approximately 2 km from shore.

News of the new island sent a titter through the international DX community. New Ones of any sort difficult to find. But there is no denying that Zalzala Koh is a true New One.

An international group of DXpeditioners is being assembled to mount a expedition to newly formed mud island as I write this. Sponsorship is being secured and travel arrangements are almost complete. It is hoped that the call AP4ONY can be secured for the DXpedition.

Although Zalzala Koh has not been approved by either IOTA, DXCC, or any other award program, the DX spirit of WFWL (Work First, Worry Later) is at play here. If past history is any indication, Zalzala Koh may disappear within a year succumbing to the erosive power of the pounding of waves from monsoon storms, so work 'em while you can!

CQWW Is Just Around The Corner

Last week while hanging out at the Lost Island DX Society clubhouse, SSB operator extraordinaire Rusty Key stopped by. Someone mentioned that CQWW was quickly approaching. While the other LIDS were excitedly discussing the prospects for banner propagation this year, I noticed Rusty was awfully quiet.

 "Hey, Rusty, you planning another big operation for WW phone this year?" I asked.

 Rusty turned exceedingly shy, looked at the ground and said, "Naw, don't reckon I'll do much."

 For one of the most prominent LIDS phone operators this was shocking and suspicious. It took a little prying to find out what was going on, but eventually Rusty fessed up.

"I was DQ'd last year."

"What!? Were you running Uncle Percy's amp that has the tube with handles again?" I asked.

"Naw," Rusty replied indignantly, "I won't even running the limit. My fancy digital wattmeter sat on 1495 all weekend!"

"Well, what was it then?"

"If you must know, they said I was operating outside the contest time period."

"Rubber clocking?! Who in the world gets nabbed for rubber clocking in this day and age of computers? Besides, the contest is 48 hours long and there ain't no less than 48 hour categories, at least until this year. How did you end up 'operating outside the contest period'?"

"Well, come 2359Z on Sunday night I had been up for over 48 hours straight. I guess I just zoned out and kept calling CQ. Guys kept coming back to me, so I kept working 'em."

"You mean guys kept calling you after 0000Z? Didn't, uh, your rate drop quite a bit?"

"Well, yeah it did, but you know the secret to contest success is Butt In Chair even when the rate drops. I figured it was just a lull, so kept CQing and kept working 'em even at 5-10 an hour."

"Hmmm, well guess fatigue can come into play and anybody can have a lapse of judgement. Well how long did you operate?"

"You mean when did I stop?"

"Yeah, when did you stop?"

"Tuesday."

"Tuesday!!!"

"Yeah, I don't know what happened. I was so tired I finally fell asleep at the mic and didn't realize what had happened until I woke up Thursday. I apparently hit the macro button I had written to automagically send my log to the contest sponsor when I fell asleep. It was too late then."

"So the Contest Committee automatically disqualified you?"

"No, not a first. They wrote and asked me for an explanation. I panicked and responded with some gibberish about the compression and expansion of time due to Einstein's Theory of Relativity and Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. I think I even worked in something about leap years. It was desperate and stupid. That was when they disqualified me."

"Can't say as I blame them. So you're sitting the old 'WW out this year?"

"I guess so. I was thinking I might borrow the club call for the contest. It would be a good year to run Uncle Percy's amp again."

3rd Annual Talk Like a Pirate Radio-Sport Contest

The closest thing the Lost Island DX Society has to a tradition is the annual Talk Like A Pirate Contest. Every September 19, corresponding to Talk Like A Pirate Day, the LIDS take to the air in an unholy amalgam of radio contesting and piratey behavior. 

So once again starting at 0000Z September 19, hoist the Jolly Roger, tune up your best Death Ray Amplificator and call "Sea-Q, Maties!" Exchange Aahhrr-est-tee reports and ye pirate nom de plume (that be what da' Cap't calls you for you unedumacated scallywags). Work as many other pirates as you can and scribble it all down on a piece of foolscap, roll it up, and stick it in an empty rum bottle and toss it in the sea. Eventually it will wash ashore on Lost Island and we'll tabulate the results. An added doubloon or two in the bottle might make the bottle here a bit sooner and encourage the log checking crew to not look so closely at yer scribbles.

Get You Log In On Time

The CQWW Contest Committee has announced that starting with the 2012 contests, the time period for log submissions after each contest has been reduced from thirty days to just five days.

As with any change to a contest rule, the contestsenti are all atwitter with opinions pro and con. The hyper-competitive type-A proto-Big Gun types greeted the announcement with a hearty huzzah and only complained that the committee didn't adopt a WRTC-style rule requiring log submission within ten minutes after the end of the contest. A contingent claiming to represent those whose lives don't revolve around the weekend's contest du jour thought five days a bit too restrictive as some people like to do things like eat, sleep, and go to work in addition to contesting. No mention was made of finding time to sit around a campfire and have a drum circle. Their proposals for a reasonable log submission time ranged from 8 to 14 days.

The staff at the Lost Island DX Society Research Center have applied their best brain cell to the issue and after extensive research, which coincidentally lasted precisely as long as two six-packs did, have arrived at the optimum time period for log submission. The precise optimal time period for log submissions is 7 days, 3 hours, and 52.8 minutes.

No need for the CQWW Contest Committee and the contest community as a whole to thank us. We at the Lost Island DX Society are happy to contribute where we can. That should end the controversy and we can go back to discussing what 'assistance' really means.

Field Day on Lost Island

The Lost Island DX Society hosted Macho Cuesew and Lech Dinero  for Field Day. For those looking for the location of Lost Island, there might be some clues in the video.

Original Box

We’re BAAAACCCCKKKKK! Not that anybody seems to have missed us. The last couple of months Cousin QRM has been severely depressed due to SADD (Sunspots Ain’t Doing Diddly), which have made the bands about as exciting and sluggish as day old cold oatmeal. As a result, activities around the Lost Island DX Society clubhouse have been at a lull.

But now it’s SPRINGTIME. A time when a young Big Gun’s (or Old Phart’s) fancy turns to ANTENNAS! It’s time to nurture those small springs of aluminum and steel that were planted last winter in hopes that they will blossom into magnificent spires reaching to the heavens and sprouting stacked arrays, or at least tribanders.

But even QRP DX’ers know that big antennas require an infusion of See Eh Ess Ach to grow to the heights needed to bust that new Yemen pileup. Short of a well-crafted Ponzi scheme involving P5 QSL cards, the quickest way to raise some See Eh Ess Ach is your local hamfest. Those lovingly cared for (cough) veteran rigs and amps of many past pileups and contests can be traded to a sucker fellow ham for that all important infusion of See Eh Ess Ach to feed your current habit of power and tower.

Every flea market scrounger knows that the one feature that differentiates treasure from trash is ………The Original Box. Any radio or accessory, regardless of its condition immediately doubles in price if it is accompanied by The Original Box. Just catch an episode of one of those Roadside Antique Picking shows and watch as the professionals wet their pants over the most insignificant trinket, looking old and dirty, but …. in …. its ….. Original Box.

Let’s be honest though. How many of us still have an Original Box for any of our gear? If we do, it beaten and dog-eared with the corners rounded off. And the styrofoam inserts? Forget it. If they’re still there, they’re cracked and crumbling. If you’re anything like me, and I hope you aren’t, the Original Boxes you do have certainly won’t have any Antique Picking Roadshow guru getting his undies even slightly damp.

But now there’s a solution! Dr. DX’s DX Industries and Pig Pharma Industries have combined in a joint effort to bring you The Original Box Company.

The Original Box Company can provide genuine Original Box replicas for your old gear. Have a TS-520 or Drake 2B collecting dust in the bottom of your closet? Double its value at the flea market or on ebay with an Original Box, including foam or cardboard inserts. It might have 10,000 hours of operation on the tubes, but with an Original Box it can pass for a gingerly babied shelf queen and bring top dollar.

If you’re worried that showing up at the local swapmeet with a battle worn KWM-2 in a pristine box will raise a few eyebrows, The Original Box Company offers appropriate box aging as an option with all its boxes. By giving an Original Box signs of gentle wear and aging, the value of the gear can be enhanced without raising suspicions. Collectors and eagle-eyed flea market junkies expect a modicum of wear and tear on an Original Box. A gently worn box is testament to the excellent condition of the equipment inside it.

Original Boxes will be offered for Drake, Kenwood, Yeasu, and Icom radios and accessories. Original Boxes for equipment prior to 1975 by special order only. Box aging additional. See us at Dayton. Blue van with Texas Bugcatcher on the rear bumper in the grass field across from HARA. Catch us before you setup in the flea market.

Original Box

NOT in the Original Box

End of the World As We Know It

Don’t worry about waiting for the end of the world in December. It’s already happened. It happened five years ago today. February 23, 2007. The effective date the FCC eliminated the code requirement. The day that ham radio ended. Yup. We’ve been walking dead for five years now, whether we knew it or not.

Of course that was the most recent end of ham radio. Previously, ham radio ended on April 15, 2000. That was the date when the FCC dropped the 13 wpm and 20 wpm code tests, leaving only the 5 wpm code test required for obtaining a license. Brain damaged monkeys can be taught to copy code at 5 wpm.

Prior to that, ham radio died in February 1991 when the FCC dropped the code requirement for the Technician class license. For the first time, it was possible to get on the air without any code test whatsoever. Of course, we kept them corralled to the repeaters on the VHF bands, so no real harm done. Except that’s where they started and stayed, for the most part.

Of course, the end of REAL ham radio began September 2, 1984. That’s when the FCC got out of the license testing business. No more facing the grim faced FCC examiners. No sweating the code tests as they rattled off on a decrepit code player. They even started publishing the questions.

We’re just zombies. Walking dead playing our paddles and working DX. Sooner or later we’ll wake up and realize it. In the meantime there’s a 3C on 30m that I need.

Changes to ARRL Contests

ARRL Contest Czar and all around tall guy, Sean Kudzu, announced changes to the list of multipliers for ARRL sponsored contests using ARRL/RAC sections for multipliers. The changes affect the November Sweepstakes and ARRL 160m contests.

The changes include combining the sections of North and South Dakota into the plain Dakota section. Surveys show that most Americans can’t identify the Dakotas on a map and aren’t even aware there are two separate states, including most of the residents of North and South Dakota.

Two new sections are being created. The Florida Keys will become their own section and will be known as the Conch Republic Section. While the full time ham population of the new Conch Republic section is relatively small, lots of portable activity from CO and HK ops transiting the region is expected.

The second new section to be created is Northern Virginia, or NoVa section. The region of Virginia consisting of the suburbs of Washington,DC have long held a separate cultural, political, and economic identity from the rest of the Old Dominion state. The rest of Virginia finally got tired of the NoVa belly aching and decided to cut them loose.

In a bit of irony, Washington, DC remains part of the MDC section with Maryland despite the vocal protestations of quite a few Washington amateurs demanding their own section. The only explanation for denying separate status for DC is that doing so is an opportunity to do to DC what its most prominent occupants do to the rest of the country.

There are also some changes slated for the Canadian sections which are part of RAC, ARRL’s sister organization north of the border. It involves splitting one big providence into a couple of smaller sections. The details are confusing and obscure, as even several of the affected VE’s response to the announcement was, “Eh?”

The announcement of changes to the ARRL contests brought forth the expected shrugging of shoulders from most of the contest community, but a few of the internet contestsenti erupted with the usual roar they exhibit to any change to a contest. The most hardcore claim that the November Sweepstakes rules are carved in stone and carried down from Mt. Athos by Saint Hiram himself and should never be changed.

CW Twits

Here's just the thing for combining my two favorite worlds - cw and the intertubes. Only wussies use a keyboard. Real Big Guns use a key. For everything.

Here's a cool project that uses a straight key to post inane Twitter posts (are there any other kind?). Now if we can just hook up a real paddle and crank the speed up to 35 wpm this would be a Big Gun Twitter Telegraph. Dit dit.

A Short History of QSLing

DX - Before It Disappears

The Indian island of Ghorama is slowly disappearing thanks to rising sea levels. Yeah, yeah, yeah, global warming, yada, yada, yada. Above is a picture of one of the natives of Ghorama standing on what's left of the island. Due to disappearing land mass the island may now qualify as a new DX entity under separation by water rule. If so, it will still have more dry land mass than BS7, Scarborough Reef. Separate chartered boats from Japan, Finland and a joint US/British boat are headed to Ghorama hoping for first activation.

2012 Prognostications

2012 New Year’s Predictions

New Year’s resolutions never work out well. Let’s face it, we’ll never lose that 20 lbs until we can give up the Dayton kielbasa (and neither will our heartburn stop). So instead of making a lot of promises we’ll never keep, we present our predictions for 2012. They’re about as likely as any resolutions we’d make.

1. In an unexpected or explainable development, sunspots will begin to roar across the surface of the sun. The solar flux index will hit 250 for weeks at a time. Trans-Atlantic and Trans-Pacific F2 contacts on 6m will be daily occurrences.

2. Washington DC will finally count as a separate multiplier in all contests. Except those sponsored by the ARRL or CQ magazine.

3. New North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un will take an interest in ham radio and will open up North Korea for any and all DXpeditions. The only stipulation is that all DXpeditions must be willing to transport small, heavy rods encased in lead lined containers. By the end of the year P5 will have fallen to #200 on the Most Wanted List just ahead of Italy.

4. In a twist on the Occupy movement, a group of DX’ers will attempt to Occupy Scarborough Reef to protest the ludicrousness of it counting as a separate entity. Unfortunately, since the reef is only able to accommodate at most five people at any one time, their protest will be overlooked.

5. In reaction to years of complaints that the CQ DX contests are just callsign copying contests, the CQ DX Contest Committee will change the rules and adopt a Sweepstakes style exchange. High error rates reduce top scores by one-half.

6. The topic of cut numbers will still be debated on the CQ-Contest email reflector. No consensus will be reached.

7. In a stunning development, there will be a universally accepted definition of “assisted” for contest categories. In an unrelated development, reports of airborne porcine will appear from around the world.

8. During a major phone contest, a net will vacate their frequency to allow a contester to establish a run frequency after admitting that they really didn’t have anything important to talk about.

9. The Reverse Beacon Network (RBN) will gain sentience and turn itself off during a major DX contest with a final spot of “Find the DX yourself, you lazy lids!”

10. The Lost Island DX Society will surpass the ARRL in membership.

Possible P5 Activity

This morning the Lost Island DX Society email box contained the following gem. We're warming up the amp in anticipation:

Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2011 11:21:57 -0500
Subject: P5 DXpedition
From: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
To: biggundx@gmail.com

Dear Friend,


I hope this email finds you well. I got your address from a
close friend who assured me that you are a good and trustworthy person and a
serious DXer. With the recent death of Beloved Leader Kim Jon Il, there is a
unique window of opportunity to activate the top Most Needed DX Entity, P5. As
the country transitions power from Kim Jon Il to its next leader, the state of
uncertainty that exists makes it possible to obtain the cooperation of certain
officials that will allow an amateur radio operation from P5. This is an unprecedented opportunity to hand out QSOs to The Deserving worldwide, of whom, of course,you are one.


Needless to say, the cooperation of certain officials and
the logistics involved in a DXpedition of this nature does not come cheap. Time
for organizing this operation is short as the window of opportunity is small,
so we are urgently reaching out to Top Gun DXers to ask for assistance to help
pull off this unique operation. For generous contributors, we will make special
accommodations to insure you will make it into the log and you will receive
priority service in QSL processing. Special times and publicly undisclosed
frequencies will be arranged to insure you get the needed QSO.  Generous contributors will be those contributing $1000 or more. Our QSO scheduling will begin with the most generous contributors and continue down the list, assuming the window of opportunity for this operation doesn’t close too quickly.


If you wish to be included among the generous sponsors of
this historic DXpedition and insure your needed QSOs with P5, please respond
with your name and bank account information so that we may facilitate your
contribution. We must act quickly to avoid missing this unique window of
opportunity.




73, Romeo 5N0LID 

Contesting Explained

The particular form of inanity that we enjoy called “contesting” or “radio-sport” is often difficult for fellow radio amateurs to understand, much less the family and friends who occupy our non-radio existence (if it exists). The hours of listening to high levels of QRM and QRN, yelling endlessly into a mic, or mindlessly hitting the F1 key, for 24, 30, or 48 hours while a beautiful fall weekend beckons outside with rapidly fleeting mild weather and sunlight. The hundreds of hours of work and thousands of dollars spent building towers and antennas, buying new radios and amplifiers, all to exchange a meaningless nugget of information with the same couple of thousand similarly addicted hams around the world. Why?

That is a much deeper philosophical question than we can address here, but the answer is really no different than for those who spend their time and money chasing a little white ball around in the woods trying to knock it into a small hole in the ground. Hmmm. Sort of makes our avocation seem almost normal, doesn’t it?

The trouble is that it is difficult to explain what we do in a contest, much less why.  The key to explaining foreign things to the unknowing is that you need to couch it in terms that are familiar to them. This requires using a frame of reference they can relate to. What is needed is a good metaphor. The Lost Island DX Society presents here a universally understood metaphor for at least some of the aspects of contesting – dating and sex.

The activity of Search and Pounce (S&P) is the cornerstone of any contester’s toolbox. Unless, and until, you reach Big Gun status, as a contester you probably spend a majority of your time in S&P mode. How can you explain this technique to mere mortals? The S&P hunt is not unlike the game played at every singles bar on every night of the week. The goal of every Harry Horndog at the local singles bar is to collect as many phone numbers from lovely ladies as possible, knowing full well that most of those numbers will be disconnected or belong to a pizza delivery place. It doesn’t matter. Harry is playing the odds. The more numbers he collects, the faster he’ll get a real one. Contest S&P is just like that, except you don’t have to buy the other station some fru-fru drink, make small talk and pretend you really like cats. You don’t care about the number you get from the other station – as long as you get A number from the other station. He with the most numbers wins! The measured pace of scanning the bands and working stations S&P is a lot like cruising the bar early before the crowd gets there. Pickings are relatively easy and you can cover a lot of space in a small amount of time.

But sooner or later, the hot blond in the miniskirt shows up. Once that happens, all the Harry Horndogs are stumbling all over themselves and each other to get HER number. This is a pileup.

The goal of every contester is to be the hot blond in the miniskirt. These are the Big Guns.  They command the crowd who want to get their number. When a pileup continues for an extended length of time, it’s called a RUN. The run is to contesting what sex is to, well, sex. There are definite similarities between a run and sex. You never know when you’ll get a run. When you get a run, you never how long it’s going to last. You never know how good a run will be until it’s over. When it’s over, you miss the run and want another one. You never know if or when you’ll get another run.

So there you have it, Contesting Explained. Well, maybe not all of it, but if your non-contesting friends can’t understand the above explanation of what contesting is, well, maybe you should look for some new friends.

What really happens on 14.300?

If you've spent much time on 20m SSB, surely you've run into the Maritime Mobile Net. and probably wondered what they really do other than making sure their frequency is kept clear "just in case." Finally, there's video evidence of the important service they provide to the world at large, keeping sailors the world over safe.

Second Annual Talk Like A Pirate Contest - September 19

September 19 is once again the annual Talk Like A Pirate Day. Last year the Lost Island DX Society (LIDS) sponsored the first Talk Like a Pirate Radio-Sport Contest. LIDS, both formal and unformal, were encouraged to take to the airways and make Qs with other pirate-minded LIDS and lids. The suggested call was "Sea-Q ye Scallywags!" or "Ahoy Pirates!" with an exchange of signal Aahhrr-est-tee and yer pirate name.

To say we were underwhelmed with the contest response would be akin to saying that Cousin QRM has a slight taste for the rum. Oh, there were plenty of LIDS on the air that day and quite a few pirates, but the scoundrels were mighty stingy in offering up any pirate booty to sway the adjudication  committee.

Nevertheless, we’re game to try it all again this year. So September 19, 0000Z-2359Z, plus or minus a couple of hours, work as many pirates as you can. Score is the total number of unique pirates worked, work 'em once per band, times the total number of Pirates and landlubbers ye work. Count any beauties ye work double. Triple if they "Aahrrr" you back with a lassie pirate name.

Submit scores and lies in the comments below. Send pirate booty to Cousin QRM to improve your chances of winning. Judging will be by a council of Pirate LIDS and will be as fair an' honest as the Poisson d'Avril contest. Deadline for entry - when you get around to it.