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Re: [CQ-Contest] Encouraging Casual Participation in Contests

To: cq-contest@contesting.com
Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] Encouraging Casual Participation in Contests
From: W0MU Mike Fatchett <w0mu@w0mu.com>
Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2017 15:15:54 -0600
List-post: <cq-contest@contesting.com">mailto:cq-contest@contesting.com>
Especially when many awards are provided at no cost via a PDF file such as the WWFF and POTA awards. NPOTA awards had a cost but the LOTW fees were waived.

Are award costs the reason that people are not contesting or getting involved in the hobby?

W0MU


On 4/30/2017 8:09 AM, Bill Parry wrote:
You have completely missed the point.  $120 is not a big deal (well to most of 
us) but is the WPX award worth the cost? My perspective is that it is simply 
not worth the cost. If I want a piece of paper on the wall, I don't have to 
spend that kind of money...there are many certificates that can be had for less 
than that. The 5BWAZ certificate on the wall was about that cost.  Do you 
believe that a WPX certificate has the same value as the WPX? Apparently some 
do!

Bill W5VX

-----Original Message-----
From: Adam Mercier [mailto:adam@kenbrio.com]
Sent: Sunday, April 30, 2017 9:03 AM
To: Ron Notarius W3WN <wn3vaw@verizon.net>
Cc: Bill Parry <bparry@rgv.rr.com>; lu5dx@lucg.com.ar; cq-contest@contesting.com
Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] Encouraging Casual Participation in Contests

Taking your math at face value, let's assume it's $500 for the physical cards.  
That figure makes the $120 seem less of a big deal.  However....

It's not a question of total cost, but the distribution that becomes 
staggering.  How long have you been working on getting those cards? 5 years? 
10? 20?   When you gradually distribute the $500 across a significant span of 
time, it becomes more palatable.  That's how credit cards and banks operate.  
But if you balance that against a 1-time expense of $120, that $120 is much 
more painful.

My 2 cents...

Adam, KM7N

Sent from my iPhone

On Apr 29, 2017, at 15:38, Ron Notarius W3WN <wn3vaw@verizon.net> wrote:

Bill,

I agree in principle that a quantity discount would be nice to have.
Especially if you're submitting 1000 cards at $.12 each...  Namely
$120

However, let's keep things in perspective.  If you have to request the
physical 1000 cards from the domestic and DX stations, how much will
it cost you to obtain them?

Let's say 400 of those cards are from US stations or US managers.  So
that's
400 letters sent at about $.49 each for first class postage... That's
$196 right there.  Plus cost of cards and envelopes.  And if you have
an SASE in with each, that's $392 just for postage.  Easily can be
another $100 for envelopes and cards.  So you're looking at about
$500.  For the domestic 400 cards, we haven't even gotten into the other 600 DX 
cards.

Suddenly, that $120 doesn't look too bad, does it?

73, ron w3wn

-----Original Message-----
From: CQ-Contest [mailto:cq-contest-bounces@contesting.com] On Behalf
Of Bill Parry
Sent: Saturday, April 29, 2017 9:37 AM
To: lu5dx@lucg.com.ar; cq-contest@contesting.com
Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] Encouraging Casual Participation in Contests

I am a big supporter of LOTW and have used it extensively for award
submission.  The WPX award is not one of them. I would like to use it
for the WPX but the cost is not acceptable. If I were to apply 1000
Prefixes at
$.12 per LOTW QSL, the cost is just too much. Using LOTW for some
awards just doesn't work financially, nor is sending 1,000 QSLs in for checking.
There needs to be a different method of applying for these awards that
require a lot of QSLs such as WPX.

Bill W5VX

-----Original Message-----
From: CQ-Contest [mailto:cq-contest-bounces@contesting.com] On Behalf
Of Martin LU5DX
Sent: Wednesday, April 26, 2017 10:43 AM
To: cq-contest@contesting.com
Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] Encouraging Casual Participation in Contests

Absolutely great idea.

TBH, LoTW should become the standard solution for issuing credits for
other awards. National and local Clubs, Groups, could take advantage of it.

We've been talking about this type of solution with LU1FAM and LU5FF.

The ARRL could charge a small fee to those institutions using their
LoTW service to validate the credits.

Win-Win solution!

73,

Martin LU5DX


El 26/04/2017 a las 11:23 a.m., Pete Smith N4ZR escribió:
We all agree, I think, that casual participants are a critical part
of the total workable population in contests. I spent the first 40
years of my contesting career working contests as a quick and
relatively easy source of award credits, and I suspect a large
majority of the stations in any contest are doing some variation on this.

There is a reasonably simple and straight-forward way to encourage
more of this, potentially yielding more people for us to work.  We
need interconnection between CQ and ARRL contest databases, so that
any contact that is in both stations' log in a given contest can be
claimed for ARRL and CQ award credit without going through the QSL
card process.

I'm not underestimating the programming effort involved, I hope, but
surely some combination of volunteer and professional staff
involvement can get it done. It could start small - perhaps a pilot
involving the CQWW open log database and DXCC. Imagine the value
added to LOTW if it were the hub for this process, and the potential
increase in DXCC fees. Surely, this is a win-win proposition.


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