My very good friend Jim Neiger, N6TJ, wrote:
> What do we have to lose??
Althought Jim and I have not always seen eye-to-eye at times over the past 40+
years of our FB friendship, he tendered some excellent suggestions and also
asked the salient question of the day. The answer, of course, is "Nothing".
The concept of innovation and change are not strangers to both of us, since Jim
was the one who scribbled "NCCC" on a cocktail napkin when we both exited an
NCDXC meeting to the bar area for continued "private discussion" about the
NCDXC's refusal to support "Contest" log submissions from club members. I
consider Jim to be the "Father of the NCCC", and I confess to being the
"radical" responsible for the continued controversy which led us to that night
of brilliance on Jim's part. But don't take my word for it:
http://www.nccc.cc/history.html . Thank you again, Jim, for your innovative
thinking and support!
I see similarities in the processes here with Randy's suggestion. Since I
didn't return to HF until November, 2003, I missed seeing this relevent article
by Pete, N4ZR & N2MG: http://www.contesting.com/articles/401 (Tnx, Syl, for
the URL) which also contained such "forward thinking" concepts.
Here are a couple of additiional thoughts.
1. To avoid the fear problem relating to Sunday and possibly not having enough
12/24 operators around to work near the end of the contest, let's continue to
think creatively here. Instead of 12/24 choices and some possible "rest
periods" therin, an option would be to further split the 12/24 classes up into
6 hour on-air segments of choice (with no breaks), but with at least one 6 hour
segment being mandatory during the LAST 6 hours of the Contest :-) This would
also provide more flexibility for strategy choices, and not penalize any
players due to time-of-day/night band propagation shortfalls. So, a 12 hour
entry would have two 6 hour components, and a 24 hour entry would have four 6
hour components.
2. To further motivate all the LPCS (Little Pistol Contest Stations) to put
more hours in the chair, maybe now is the time to consider incorprating an
additional carrot ("playing field levelizer") similar to what I did in the LQP
rules for antenna & output power, but to use an "Adjustment Factor" number so
those that want to run full power can still do so (vs. having to crank down
actual output power): http://www.k6vva.com/lqp/lqprules.html . Remember, an
objective is to get more operators on the air for more hours than they would
normally operate.
3. To expedite log checking, perhaps several of our programming skills endowed
fellow Contesters might volunteer to modify a copy of the current log checking
Robot code, and log submissions be made to a separate destination/website.
In addition to sponsoring 5 NCJ Subscriptions as Awards, I'll also spring for 2
plaques (circa $50 each) this first go around.
73...
Rick, K6VVA * The Locust
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