I saw an early post in the 7QP soapbox[0] from Bob K0RC, and kind of
thought it should see the light of comments from here. Quoting...
> I propose the State QSO Party organizers begin serious consideration to
> standardize their contest exchange. There are 39 different QSO Party
> modules in my contesting program. One program author has discontinued
> support for these parties because of the cost/benefit ratio can't be
> justified. Support in the remaining programs is not stellar.
>
> A standard exchange of State + County by both in-state and out-of-state
> participants would allow multiple QSO Parties to run during overlapping
> time periods efficiently. Logs could be parsed and scored easily from
> the 3,077 "entities" in the US. In addition, this sets the stage for
> transporting the county information into your daily logging program.
Having working the 7QP for my second time (and dealt with a couple of
others) I think this is an OUTSTANDING idea. In addition to Bob's
comments, it would make the mental parsing of 'what data do I enter in
the log?' easier for 'new contesters'. As I try and bring more people
into contesting, even as a casual event (like I treat it a lot of the
time) having to seperate exchanges from NEQP versus InQP versus 7QP
versus MIQP can get a bit... offputting. Additionally, it makes life
at least slightly more 'standard' for those of us still blowing the rust
off of our CW skills. (yes, I promise, I'm getting better -- I'm even
thinking about participating in WPX/CW in a couple of weeks!)
Does it make things "easier"? Yes. Maybe it lessens the skill needed
to copy an exchange in CW, or log things properly. C'est la vie. But I
contend that it'll make things a little more friendly for 'newbies' to
enter. And, when they day is done and we're all sitting down to dinner
together at the next banquet, isn't Amateur Radio, in its highest form,
about fellowship and camaraderie?
Ok, enough of the soapbox, before I start to sound like I belong on
14.275. Back to net from N0QXW... Good day.
--mec
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