A long term Buddy of mine since the 1970's He ws my second contact on 2
meter SSB,
He just took over the job of the guy in charge of contests in the ARRL.
I was talking to him a while ago about the horrible turnout that the
"Rookie Roundup" has.
I know it was supposed to be bringing back the old Novice Roundup. but
it has failed miserably.
I mean when a single contact made and you can come in first place in
your section, is pretty bad.
I asked him about bringing back the old Novice roundup the way it was
ran back when it was a super popular event.
But it was far too radical of changes.
But today I asked him this below, as far as a change goes, it may help
some old timers try something new.
Hi Bart,
Hey Mr. Contest.
Have you been reading all the conversations on the various reflectors
about how to get new people into contesting?
Rookie Roundup.
I know I touched on this one item before with you and I was far to far
out with major changes to it. So a no Go.
BUT............
How about this change? Especially with all the talk on the e mail lists,
on how and when an amateur may get into contesting.
Make one change in the Rookie Rule.. Right now in RR it states.
3.1.1. Rookie entries are limited to operators who received their first
amateur license during the current year or preceding two calendar years.
(See rule 4.1)
4.1. Rookies must have a check from the current year or any of the
preceding two calendar years. For example, in the 2015 Rookie Roundup
events, Rookies must have a check of 15, 14, or 13.
While this is Rookie Roundup. And is set to encourage newly licensed
operators to try contesting.
How about this one simple change? Instead of being Rookie as in being
Licensed.
How about Rookie as in Contesting?
Like the Wisconsin QSO Party Rookie Class?
The rules for the Rookie category are:
No previous WIQP entry other than in the Rookie category
May enter this category no more than twice and entries must be in
two consecutive years
Entries may be single operator only
This way even established operators can try contesting as a Rookie...
Thoughts?
Joe
I haven't gotten a reply as of yet ..
Joe WB9SBD
P.S. I Just loved the old Novice Roundup format. I wish they would
bring it back
Sig
The Original Rolling Ball Clock
Idle Tyme
Idle-Tyme.com
http://www.idle-tyme.com
On 3/28/2016 4:32 PM, Gerry Hull wrote:
Just to pipe in once again on this one,
We, as hobbyists, don't promote HF (Shortwave) Amateur radio. How many
events do we see in the press about HF? Very little. And when we do, it's
usually about
an old guy sitting in his basement.
Yes, computers are very compelling. However, so is radio. On the tip of
my mind, I can think of at least 15 hams under age 19 that are all very
active. Only a few are contesters.
Getting non-hams to jump right into contesting is a hard jump. But those
people who have a competitive mind and strategy might love it. Get em
interested in HF first.
Again, for any of you coming to Dayton this year, take some time to say
hello to Marty, KC1CWF... A 14-year-old self-taught ham, who is TOTALLY
into computers.
He had no family member in the hobby. He made 600K in WPX this weekend,
SOHP, using low wires and a borrowed amplifier. He "gets" ham radio,
especially HF. He formed a club of young hams. Marty will be staying at
the CP, with his mom, who fully supports his hobby.
Marty listens to CW contests, and knows he MUST learn CW to participate.
He is working hard at it!
Rather than lament about no young people in ham radio, get off your duffs
and do something about it! Give back to the hobby that has given you so
much!
Don't discount how intelligent these young technologists are. They learn
fast. It's a different world. Ham radio -- especially contesting -- has
a lot of ancillary technology we did not have as kids. SDRs, Spotting
Networks, live internet logging/You Tube from DXpeditions, Remote, the
Reverse Beacon Network. All very interesting and compelling tech. One may
debate if this is ham radio -- certainly it's not your grandparents ham
radio. But without electromagnetic waves and the radios that harness them,
non of these ancillary technologies (except for YouTube) would exist.
BTW, for those who worry about "old men and young boys", I understand.
However, those problems can be easily overcome, with an open, frank
exchange with parents and/or teachers. Marty has been to two big contest
operations -- both events, his parents were called by more than one of the
operating team, and, his dad even came to one of the operations.
Also, when computers came out, how many of us thought of "us vs them".
Computers had no place in the hobby. Look how that has changed!
73, Gerry W1VE
PS: The Commodore 64 brought us Doctor DX -- the best ham radio contest
simulator ever! It was fun during low sunspot cycles!
On Mon, Mar 28, 2016 at 3:12 PM, Bob Shohet, KQ2M <kq2m@kq2m.com> wrote:
Hi Steve,
I have a different view on this because from my experiences from the
Northeast, I have seen a very large difference, starting in the early ‘80’s,
between contesters and future potential contesters from different
continents.
Like you, I expected, that the PC Revolution would absolutely drain away
the future interest of teens from ham radio.
That has apparently happened in the US. No surprise there. HOWEVER, this
has not happened to anywhere near the same
extent in Europe as it has in the US.
In fact, since the early ‘80’s, European contesting growth has absolutely
exploded and continues to increase with each
successive sunspot cycle. I noticed this particularly in the late 80’s
and the number of EU stations that were runnable on 10 and 15
SSB were much higher than in the previous cycle. Then in the late ‘90’s
there was another large leap in rate and total q’s by band
with many, many more EU calls in the log. And this continued into the
present cycle where on both cw and ssb, the EU numbers just
continue to explode. Now it is “typical” for a single op single band EU
op. on 40 or 20 to make 3,000+ q’s in CQWW and quite a few
are approaching 3,500 q’s! And 60% or more of that is just from NON-US
q’s! These numbers are simply unimaginable compared to
20 and 30+ years ago and the volume, especially on CW is NOT coming from
increased US activity. It is coming from Europe and
clearly not what I expected; but I am very happy to see it! :-)
We can probably come up with a list of reasons as to why this has happened
but clearly the EU hams have had far more success
in encouraging teens and adult participation in contesting than the US has
had, especially on cw.
You and I are about the same age (mid-late 50’s) so you probably remember
that in the 1970’s, many US junior high and high schools had a
school amateur radio station. That is where and when many of us had our
first exposure to the magic of radio and we used our
teen years to operate, get into contesting and avidly pursue it. Those
school stations are long gone so those teens are NOT getting
exposure to it anymore, except by random chance. The you add in the HOA’s
and other radio related property and home restrictions and that knocks
out most of the rest. So these two developments alone have probably
eliminated 90% or more of potential future ops and future contesters
from those teens that MIGHT have been interested despite the rise of
pc’s. Then there are the cultural differences – which are HUGE.
CW has always been prized throughout Europe – not so much in the US. And
the fact that contests and operating have often been more of a social
event in Europe than here. I remember being in S5 for WRTC in 2000, and
the evening before the contest, there was a gathering of the local
hams and their families and friends at the hilltop site where myself and
Dan, W7WA were going to operate. There were easily
100+ people there and maybe only 20 of them had licenses!!! They were
curious and wanted to see what it was all about. But they also regularly
came out as a group to visit the hilltop and have a barbecue and meet and
talk with each other. I was told that this was “normal” – the S5 hams
socialized together
very frequently with their families. Many of the kids got into radio
because of this and then got their licenses because mom or dad
had a license and got on the air and so they were exposed to the hobby and
contesting at an early age. The PC revolution had little
effect on their interest in radio. It was in addition to radio rather
than detracting from it.
By contrast, in the US, most teens had either little or no awareness of
radio, much less contesting, or thought that radio was
antiquated and uncool. How many of us have been successful at generating
interest in contesting amongst our own kids?
VERY FEW! Not the case in many countries of Europe. Also, with all the
contesters in the Northeast, how often do we get
together – even with those who live within 10 miles of us? ALMOST NEVER!
That is completely the opposite of what
happens in many EU countries.
30+ years later we can see the results. Contesting activity in Europe
(both modes) has exponentially increased while in the US
it has increased slightly, if at all. In the “everybody works everybody”
contests, my % of EU q’s has increased enormously
from 30+ years ago and the % of US has declined dramatically. Sure my
antennas are better and more directional than they used to be,
and my radio is higher quality and has better filtering so that I can dig
out more stations and make far more q’s than in the past,
but those aren’t the key reasons.
I welcome the continued growth in radio and contesting in Europe and am
concerned about what continued to happen in the US.
Cultural differences are probably the biggest factor and the hardest to
reverse – we can can and should learn from the European contesters
who have not been affected to nearly the same degree by home computers.
73
Bob KQ2M
The answer is easy...When did the Commodore 64 and other affordable home
computers come out ? (1982, if you don't remember.) By the late 80's, every
technokid was into PC's, not ham radio.
73,Steve, N2IC
03/24/2016 11:50 AM, RT Clay wrote:> > The problem with this as the cause,
however, is that in the 1980's (when I was first licensed as a "young
person"), none of those were around and the number of young people in ham
radio and especially contesting was also very small :)> > TorN4OGW
Bob Shohet, KQ2M
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