Shooting fish in a barrel

I read a lot of blogs that don't appear on my favorite blog list. I need to take time and update my list as some of those listed don't appear to be active anymore. I mean well, but time slips away and then there's the endless distractions, holidays...ok, I'm making excuses.

The fact is, I read a number of blogs almost daily that I don't have links to. I get to them through links on other sites. But I'm always grateful when someone links to me, so I should be sure and return the gesture if I find their blog interesting.

But I don't always read a person's blog because I agree with everything they write. Often I'll strongly disagree with a point that he or she has made, but that doesn't mean that I don't like their blog or agree with the other 90% of what they write.

Case in point, a blog that I follow regularly which doesn't appear on my list is one written by a fellow who is deep into Software Defined Radio (SDR). I find this interesting. I've mulled over the possibility of buying an SDR radio one day, although not any time soon. There's a number of things that need to come first before I think about another radio. Anyway, I enjoy reading this guy's blog and I've learned a lot from him, not only about SDR but also about operating and taking a different view towards things. Through his entries, I feel that I've gained a pretty good understanding of SDR.

The other day, however, I ran across an entry he'd made in which he described a recent sitation where he'd heard a rare DX station on 80 meters and due to the fact that he'd bought a new instant-on amplifier (to go along with his 3 other amplifiers - does one guy really need 4 amplifiers??) he'd dropped his call in, had the station come back to him immediately, worked him, and said the entire process took, maybe, 30 seconds.

Then he said, "This is how man was meant to live!".

Something about that struck me wrong. I think we've all wondered what it would be like to just flip on the radio, have DX come pouring in, and just take our pick. Toss out our call, have them come back, log them, chalk up another one.

But do we REALLY want it to be that easy? Where's the challenge? Where's the strategy? What's the point? Like shooting fish in a barrel.

Might even get boring.

Would you feel better working a rare DX station in one call with the full legal limit, or running 100 watts (or QRP even) with compromised antennas, working at it and finally nabbing them? Maybe this guy has done all of that and now he has the ability to "shoot the fish", so why not? I'm not calling him to task for doing that, but I'm disagreeing with his statement.

I just don't think that it would be much fun. I still like his blog, though, and I'll definitely keep reading it. :)