Reading all the ideas on contest exchanges reminded me of an article in the
March/April 1995 NCJ: ?On the Road to More Interesting Contest Exchanges:
Alternatives to 599/59? by J. Bruce Prior, TA2ZO.
He lists several contests that don?t require signal reports and then
proposes a new exchange: antenna description. He suggests DP for dipole, YG
for Yagi, H for horizontal polarization, V for vertical, a number for
antenna height and/or for dB of gain, etc. ? it can be made as simple or as
complicated as you like. I don?t think this would make a suitable
multiplier but as an addition to the state or country or whatever the
exchange might be, not only is it interesting but I can?t think of a more
valuable piece of information to exchange. This is especially true for
those who, like me, operate from a small lot with no amp and no beam and
would like to know how their signal is doing. True RST?s are out of the
question (hey ? THERE?S an idea for a different and interesting exchange ?
an HONEST RST! ? but could you give one hearing a callsign that takes only 2
or 3 seconds?). To quote from the NCJ article: ?If I learn from an operator
in Newfoundland that she is receiving my 5-W CW signal on 15 meters through
a ground mounted quarter-wave vertical, that?s incredibly good news. If
she?s using a 6-element monoband yagi up 50 meters, I won?t be so
surprised.? For a similar reason I like the ARRL power output exchange for
DX: if the great majority of people I work are running over 500 watts then
that?s not so good (maybe), but if I work a big chunk of folks 100 watts and
below then that?s encouraging (maybe).
There?s a huge bonus with antenna exchanges in generating some seriously
useful data to look through. Some clever person could write some software
that could take the entire database of logs received and generate a report
that I would pay good money for.See you on the vertical next ?test -73 de
John
kq6es
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