ARRL VHF/UHF Contesting and Awards Survey
NEWINGTON, CT -- October 7, 2002
With a higher proportion of VHF-only licensees than ever before, one might
expect that VHF/UHF contesting would be experiencing a surge in popularity. To
the contrary, while the total QSOs being made in the multi-band contests seems
steady, the number of logs - and thus the number of serious participants - has
fallen off considerably since 1996. This has led the ARRL to ask you for your
thoughts on why this might be happening and how to best address and reverse the
trend. We'd also like to hear from you about the ARRL VHF/UHF awards program in
general.
The survey is the result of a request from the ARRL Board to look into ways to
increase participation. It is being sent to a random sample of regular
top-scorers and average participants, regardless of their score, plus clubs
that regularly participate in VHF/UHF club competitions. Our interest is in
gathering information we can use to improve the participation and quality of
both the various ARRL VHF/UHF contests and the ARRL VHF/UHF awards programs.
The detail and quality of information in your answers is especially important
to us.
The Survey -
The survey is organized into several areas of inquiry. The first group deals
exclusively with contesting:
Existing contests - how can their formats, rules, or reporting be improved such
that activity and log submissions are increased? This survey refers to the
following ARRL sponsored contests: January VHF Sweepstakes, June & September
VHF QSO Parties, August UHF Contest, 10 GHz and Up competition, and the Oct/Nov
EME Contest
New contest formats - are there new formats that would be attractive to the
existing contest community?
New participants - what improvements or additions to VHF/UHF contesting would
attract more operators to the sport? How can these operators be reached?
A second area of interest is the ARRL VHF/UHF awards program and increasing the
level of interest and participation. The existing awards such as VUCC, WAS, and
DXCC, are derivatives of the HF awards program. There is some concern that
these awards either have too high an initial qualification level or may be
missing some interests of VHF/UHF operators. There are two groups of questions:
Existing awards - how can their rules or categories might be improved so that
more activity is encouraged?
New awards - are there new award programs that would be attractive to VHF/UHF
operators?
Responding
Each topic has a series of questions related to either VHF/UHF contesting or
awards. Please select the answer that best matches your position or situation.
Please feel free to extend your remarks (use additional pages if necessary).
Your detailed comments are very important.
The survey is downloadable as an Adobe Acrobat file on the web at
http://www.arrl.org/contests/announcements/vhf-survey.pdf
It should be completed and returned by regular mail to: VHF/UHF Survey, attn:
Wayne Mills, N7NG, ARRL, 225 Main St, Newington CT 06111. We would like to have
the returned surveys by October 31st. You may copy the blank survey and
distribute it to other amateurs, particularly to operators that may not be
active in VHF/UHF contesting now. A summary of the results will be available in
the future.
Thanks and 73
Dan Henderson, N1ND
ARRL Contest Branch Manager
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