The apparent sudden interest in adding 6 meters to the various
contests is not a craven ploy by ARRL to sell their advertisers'
radios. About a year ago (before IC-756s, FT-920s, etc.) the
Board of Directors voted to ask the CAC to study this question.
I believe this was proposed by N4MM, an active 6 meter operator,
with the intent of promoting activity on a band which could use a
lot more activity.
To me it is clearly a stupid idea for the ARRL DX contest. There
simply is no DX to be worked in February or March unless you live
within 100 miles of Tiajuana, Cuba, or 4U1UN.
The ten meter contest situation is less clear, but probably not
worth the confusion.
The only contest where it might make any sense is phone SS. This
would only require changing the allowed frequencies to include up
to 51 MHz. (Spare the world the hassle of arguing about using
the 6 meter FM calling frequencies). I doubt that it would have
very much effect. My experience in VHF contests in a fairly
large urban area (Cleveland) is that begging QSOs from
noncontesters is a slow and not terribly rewarding proposition.
It's much better for your SS score to live in Yuma or Reno where
you can sit for hours in the 10 meter novice band.
Six meters is a fun band for several months a year, and those
several months are just about to begin. And those months are
basically the slowest months on the HF bands. For a hundred
bucks for a TenTec transverter kit I'd encourage anyone to get on
six just for the fun of it (and to work me in the VHF contests :) ).
But I don't see any particular need or reason to change the rules
of the HF contests at this time.
Jim K8MR
----------------------------
Jim Stahl
InterNet: k8mr@barf80.nshore.org
Basic Amateur Radio Frequency, BARF-80 +1 216/237-8208
"Totally devoted to Amateur Radio" - 24 Hrs a day 8/N/1 14.4k-300 baud
--
CQ-Contest on WWW: http://www.contesting.com/_cq-contest/
Administrative requests: cq-contest-REQUEST@contesting.com
|