On Mon, Dec 15, 2003 at 08:22:29PM -0500, Ev Tupis (W2EV) wrote:
> "Hoffman, Mark" wrote:
> >
> > I believe that was his entire point. That it's EASIER to build a competitive
> > station with fewer bands HAS taken away from the potential pool of uWave
> > activity. If I can WIN M/L, and be a speck in the results as M/M - why
> > bother with it?
>
> And this is the wrong message to be sending when the ARRL is expending a
> significant amount of effort in trying to protect our uWave bands. Think
> about
> this:
>
> o Donate to the spectrum defense fund
> o Create a contesting category that actually encourages you to NOT use
> spectrum
You are not going to get everyone who shows an interest in VHF operating to
buy microwave gear. It's expensive, it takes a lot of time and effort to
build a station, and a lot of time and effort to learn how to use it. It
has been and always will be a small niche activity.
Half of the ARRL-sponsored VHF+ contesting weekends are specifically
designed to cater to microwave operators. In the other half of the
contesting weekends, all but ONE operating category is heavily microwave-
oriented. And you want to get rid of that ONE category because it
offends your sense of VHF contesting as a pro-microwave PR stunt.
In HF contesting, there are all sorts of different contests with all
sorts of different rules and different entry categories, offering different
competitive opportunities for everyone. There is nowhere near the same
variety in VHF contesting, and here you want to make sure that every
entry category in every contest is the same and requires people to be
on 10 or 12 bands and live in a very small region of the country in order to
have a remote chance of winning.
I think it is a pretty daft idea.
> Both are ARRL activities, each of which works in opposition to the other.
I guess we should get rid of single-band VHF Sprints - oh wait, the ARRL
already did that.
Maybe we should get rid of HF contests, too, because, you know, they aren't
using the microwave bands, either. And often big HF contest weekends
attract operators who might instead be doing a VHF contest, too. Aren't
HF contests in opposition to the promotion of microwave spectrum usage?
Truth.
--
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Kenneth E. Harker "Vox Clamantis in Deserto" kharker@cs.utexas.edu
University of Texas at Austin Amateur Radio Callsign: WM5R
Department of the Computer Sciences Central Texas DX & Contest Club
Taylor Hall TAY 2.124 Maintainer of Linux on Laptops
Austin, TX 78712-1188 USA http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/kharker/
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