OK, I'm confused here... not that that's anything new. So let's see...
For all the years (50? 60? 70?) that the ARRL has run the International DX
Contest(s) in one form or another, the results were only available, months
after the fact, in the pages of QST, which meant that only people who got
QST (ie ARRL members and those who buy it at newstands or ham stores)
normally got to see the full results.
For the last two years or so, the results (in one form or another) have also
been made available via the ARRL Web page. As is the case this year, the
results are available early (roughly a month) in the Members Only area, but
once the magazine hits the mail, it will be available to any & all who have
web access. Which is clearly and concisely outlined on the ARRL web page.
And now we have amateurs threatening to boycott the contest because they
don't have instant access to the results, but have to wait a few weeks to
get the access that they never had at all before? To say nothing of the
surfacing of the usual anti-League rhetoric.
Yet not one word of complaint to date CQ not publishing their results to the
web. Or 73, back when they sponsored contests. Or any other national
society. Nope, as usual, it's the ARRL taking the lumps.
Oh, and I noticed one other little thing. Notably absent from the results
was at least some of the calls of those very amateurs complaining (which
ones? I'm not going to single anyone out lest this be termed a "personal
attack," but you'll have to do your own research). So, now I'm REALLY
confused. If you didn't submit an entry to the contest, then what are you
kvetching about?
(OK, OK, before I get innundated, yes, I know they might have been amongst
the operators at a M/S or M/M operation or operating under another call from
other than their home QTH, but there's no way to know that unless indicated)
I don't know what will happen next year once the contest listings are,
sadly, dropped from QST. We'll find out soon enough. Meanwhile, why can't
we that the Contest Branch for making everything available, even if in
stages, instead of whining about how unfair life is?
73, ron wn3vaw
"And they give you cash,
which is just as good as money!"
Yogi Berra, AFLAC Commercial, 2002
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