Yet again I came across this strange behaviour. A special event station operating in cw during a major contest and taking the time to send "no test". Why do this? Surely the point of running a special event station is to make lots of contacts? Why not just add a 3 digit number to each QSO? You don't need to be interested in the contest and you don't need to register or buy a ticket to enter. You don't need to send in your log, or be super efficient with each qso, but you can make a lot of people happy, and who knows you may even have fun... god forbid? With all that said there will always be the type that feel they need to make a point... "no test".
I have listened and read a lot of real hate towards contesters in recent times and there is very little fight back from contesters. There seems to be no space in the hobby, frequency limited, band limited, weekend limited, it isn't enough for some. The trouble seems to stem from operators who think they "own" a frequency for a regular "net" or bandplans with recommended frequencies for centre of operation for a specific mode like SSTV. When a contest 'intrudes' on these frequencies, non-contest operators feel violated and deliberately QRM the offenders, hardly the ham spirit?
I could be cruel and say I've learned more from an episode of East Enders than I have heard on these "nets". Each to their own, I'm not interested in talking about tomatoes, my health or my audio or how to work my radio (RTFM), am I going to complain about the rubbish these "rag-chewers" talk, no, we are all hams together enjoying our own version of the hobby.
