This is good stuff, Tree. I share your views.
Additionally,
IARU and our National Societies should be at pains to promote ethical
contesting and to discourage 'win any way' tactics. This is fundamental to
the development of contesting as a creditworthy pursuit. A good start would
define a very clear line between activities which encourage participation
and those focused upon pre-contest solicitation of contacts. The former is
laudable whilst the latter a despicable act of discredit to contesting.
Bob, 5B4AGN
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tree" <tree@kkn.net>
To: <cq-contest@contesting.com>
Sent: Tuesday, July 18, 2006 11:29 PM
Subject: [CQ-Contest] My thoughts about IARU and HQ stations
>
> 1. Activity is a good thing to encourage. Many of the HQ stations
> encourage
> their own countrymen to "wave the flag" and work them. It would be nice
> however if they weren't so focused on winning - but rather just focus on
> encouraging activity - which helps EVEYRONE in the contest. When I
> encourage people to get on and "make a few contacts" - I am not trying to
> only have them work me. Rather, I am trying to improve the activity level
> in an activity I enjoy - and as the contesters get older and start leaving
> us, activity will be even more and more important. I think those who
> encourage people to only make 12 contacts are not helping the contest
> stay healthy. They need to encourage them to work more guys. They are
> selfish otherwise.
>
> 2. The IARU contest could be more marketing and be more proactive in
> encouraging activity. The ARRL doesn't really feel that they own this
> contest, but they administer it. They don't "go the extra kilometer"
> to try and improve activity. Could there be special awards given out
> for working 50 QSOs? Or maybe 200 QSOs? I remember when we first had
> this contest - it seemed like you could get stickers for all sorts of
> different things. Maybe if the contest was advertised as well as some
> of the HQ stations, we can get more people on. Of course, if the HQ
> stations would just encourage their people to work more stations, that
> would work too.
>
> 3. Counting QSOs with people that make 100 QSOs is probably too radical
> of a change to make. I will point out that we probably can handle it
> if someone made 20 QSOs from a log checking perspecitve, and maybe that
> will be low enough to have a better chance of making it. However, as I
> remember only making one QSO in a CW Sprint contest from KL7, there are
> still people who might be challenged to make even 20 QSOs in this contest.
>
> However, if someone has the station to work 12 QSOs with one HQ station,
> I think they probably have enough station to work another few stations,
> even the HQ ones that are clogging up the bands. Look in the results
> and see how many scores there with 12 QSOs, six mults and 72 points.
> That formula only works with 1 point / QSO working HQ station on six
> bands and both modes.
>
> 4. I think the HQ station competition should be minimized in the results.
> It is fun to operate as HQ (I have done it 3 times) and hand out the
> multiplier to the people active in the contest. I think trying to work
> many many people who are not really in the contest is not "doing the
> right thing" for the contest and does not really help improve the state
> of contesting. Who will be the first group to change their behavior?
> They will be the real heros in my book - instead of just yelling and
> trying
> to say that what they are doing isn't crazy. It is also nuts to see the
> callsigns of stations who are the operators of the HQ station showing
> up in the log book. This is just not right. Also, they should note
> the rules (ARRL General rules) against using a transmitter with more
> than one callsign during the contest.
>
> 73 Tree N6TR
> tree@kkn.net
> _______________________________________________
> CQ-Contest mailing list
> CQ-Contest@contesting.com
> http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/cq-contest
>
>
_______________________________________________
CQ-Contest mailing list
CQ-Contest@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/cq-contest
|