For those of us in the 100wattsandadipole class, its got to be about improving yourself and having fun with it.

Like K9EV, I want to better my own score, but I also want to know that I am improving my skill level. There’s always some way to get more out of what you have available. It also seems to me that the most cost effective and productive station improvements I can make are to improve the operator skills. Learn more about propagation. Learn more about busting pileups. Improve my inadequate CW skills.

There are many things I can improve that will have an impact. All of them cost time, not money.

But a better antenna would sure be nice.

73,
W4KAZ

It’s why I contest and great series of articles as well.

The really interesting thing to me is that I’ve operated at some of these really big stations and they still didn’t “win” (although some did). That was the point at which I hit the “what’s contesting about for me” wall when I realized there can only be one winner in the contest and I could spend tons of time and money…for what?

And, yeah, I’m a competitive guy. I’d love to win contests.

But I’m much better off establishing a contest goal and contesting for myself. Not to mention having more money in the bank!

In my case, I would read of the multi-thousand or even million points earned by the top ops and said to myself, “this is stupid, I’ll never have a score like these top guys who do the multi-multi using million dollar super stations.

But at some point I determined that my goal wasn’t to beat anyone else — my goal was only to better my previous score.

Having only myself for competition gave me the drive I needed and it provided a much more realistic goal.

I’m enjoying this series, keep up the great work!

73 de Jeff