This Friday evening, I’m hearing a bunch of stations calling CQ SS between 7.040 and 7.050 MHz. The way I read the rules, though, the contest isn’t supposed to start until 2100 UTC Saturday. Am I crazy or are these contesters jumping the gun?
Archives for November 2010
Great Lakes Division Survey A Bust
Jim Weaver, K8JE, the Great Lakes Division Director recently conducted an online survey. He asked a curious combination of questions, and in my opinion, got back a curious combination of answers.
For example, question #2 asked, “What is your favorite Amateur Radio activity?” 27.4% answered “Emergency/Public Service Communications,” while only 8.4% answered “Contesting.” That just doesn’t seem right.
Another example is question #9, “Did you vote in the last election for ARRL Great Lakes Division Director and the last election for the ARRL Section Manager for your Section?” Approximately 70% said that they had voted in the last election.
Well, that is a number that certainly doesn’t make any sense. As some of you may remember, I ran for Vice Director in the last election. 3,578 votes were cast in that election. That’s certainly not 70% of the membership in the GL Division.
Based on these two questions alone, I’d question the usefulness of the numbers produced by this survey. I don’t think that it even reflects how the division’s ARRL members feel about the hobby, much less the amateur population in general. I hope that Weaver isn’t planning to use this survey when deciding how to vote on issues.