Re: [sarex] Stopping the "big guns" is unlikely

[Dino Darling <k6rix@xxxxxxxx>]

Nice job!  I will do what I learned from Chip (K7JA)...build my own modest 
antenna and WORK IT!  I've been eyeing a set of stacked M2 circular 
polarized beams for quite some time.  I may get them someday.  This I do 
know, WHEN I get through, I will invite others over to have a crack at 
it...those who may not have a modest antenna made out of coat hangers.  Who 
knows, someone may catch an AMSAT bug and someday become the NA 
Chairman!  Elmer the "less deserving" and become a hero rather than a 
pompous bragger.  Yes, I'm talking to YOU! :-)


At 06:00 PM 8/1/02 -0300, you wrote:
>     Several people have voiced the opinion that the high powered, 
> sophisticated stations should not work the ISS more than once.  I too 
> share that opinion, but I am not optimistic we will see it happen.
>
>     As a long time HF DXer (worked'em all, and have DXCC on 160-10, 
> etc.), I have observed this sort of thing for many years.  It is a truism 
> of DXing that many of those with kilowatts and monobanders at 100+ feet 
> can and do work DXpeditions multiple times on the same band/mode.  They 
> did this in the 1970's, 1980's 1990's, and they continue to do it 
> today.  No amount of pleading, asking, begging, threatening or hoping has 
> ever stopped them.
>
>     I am fairly new to VHF.  It took me 2 years with 50 watts and a 
> 144/440 MHz vertical to work the ISS once.  I do not intend to try again, 
> but early on it was clear to me that those with computer controlled 
> azimuth/elevation rotators that track the ISS and other satellites with 
> multiple multi-element beams and maximum legal power were going to make 
> the QSOs first.  I also concluded that they would work them at every 
> opportunity.  They are no different than the DXers I mentioned in the 
> first paragraph.  It's ego and human nature, and it isn't going to 
> change.  Why do they put "3rd QSO" in the comment field other than to 
> tell the rest of us they are really good at getting what we can't have.
>
>     There are two schools of thought on this.  The first is that they 
> should work the rare "thing", be it the ISS or some group of HF DXers 
> camped out on a desolate reef in the middle of nowhere, and than let the 
> more modest stations have their turn.  The other school of thought is 
> they paid high sums of money for their mega-stations, and they shouldn't 
> be expected to get through on the first day and then turn everything off 
> for six months.  As WA6AUD, Hugh Cassidy wrote so often in the West Coast 
> DX Bulletin during the 1970's, "Only the Deserving shall work the DX, and 
> for some there will be more than for others."
>
>     So while I sympathize with the comments made regarding the multiple 
> QSOs, and how hard it makes it for the rest of us, all I can say is that 
> WA6AUD was right . . . and that VHF ISS QSOs are no different than those 
> with rare locations on HF.  The reality is the QRPers will have to wait 
> longer, and work harder than the big guns, whether it is perceived to be 
> fair or not.  That is why I drove in my heels and didn't give up.  It 
> took two years.  I could have bought myself a mega-station and did it in 
> a month or less, but I chose not to.
>
>73, Paul VE1DX
>
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Dino...k6rix@arrl.net

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