In a message dated 4/8/03 1:27:20 PM Eastern Daylight Time, geoiii@kkn.net
writes:
>
> That might be true - in my quick glance at the numbers
> it would apper that the biggest gains were in the 1992-1995
> time period for all three contests.
>
> I wonder why?
The First contest with Rovers was June 1992
The Last contest with the old Rover Scoring was January 1996
The answer seems rather obvious.
When the Rover Catagory was introduced it sparked tremendous new activity all
over the country.The additional Rovers then generated more activity from
fixed stations because there were many more contacts to work.
The Rover scoring change was made to eliminate grid circling; despite
predictions it would reduce activity. The reduction in activity indeed did
happen. Grid circling, although not as productive, still occurs. The fix did
not work.
The original scoring weighted grids over contacts generating real interest in
Roving outside the northeast. The new scoring weights contacts over grid
squares favoring the northeast and making roving much less productive in the
remainder of the country. Less Rovers mean less contacts for fixed stations
to work and make them less likely to make a serious effort in the contest.
Less serious contest entrants leads to less logs submitted as we have seen.
At the time of the grid circling issue I proposed a simple fix that did not
change the grid/contact weighting: the addition of a "Backtrack Prohibition."
Specifically: "once a Rover has left a grid it activated and made contacts
from another grid ; it may not go back and make contacts from the previous
grid." This propoosal effectivly eliminates grid circling.
A change to the original Rover scoring with a "Backtrack Prohibition" would
help to get activity growing again.
Yet if we could get the FT100/FT817/IC706 crowd into VHF contesting we can
have a growth rate much greater than that of the early 90's. How do we do
this? We need to have seperate VHF(50,144,222,432) and All Band subdivisions
of each entry catagory.
THe VHF Rover, VHF SOLP and VHF QRP portable catagories would be very
attractive to the FT100/FT817/IC706 crowd. They could be immediately
competive in many areas of the country.The addition of a 222 FM rig or
transverter is an easy upgrade that gets them on all 4 bands. With good club
level promotion by us (the current vhf contesters) and additional promotion
by the ARRL in QST ( articles about cheap and simple antennas, and how fun it
is to be aRover for example) we stand to gain many new vhf contesters. And
who knows they try it the might get very active on vhf outside the contests.
Fr those who like the current format it's still there in the All Band
catagories. The largest scores and largest club scores will still be produced
by those with more bands. And as we generate more active vhfers we will
generate more folks who may develop an interest in the microwaves. After all
not many microwavers come straight from the HF ranks.
In summary I have two propsals:
1. Return to the original Rover scoring with the addition of a "Backtrack
Prohibition."
2. Have VHF(50,144,222,432) and All Band subdivisions of each current
catagory.
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