A. The controversy about absolute number of stations is "easily" decided:
League has the logs, let them set up a file for each contest with totality
of diffeerent stations worked on each band, and number of logs each appears
in. It should be apparent from such a set of files as to how many total
stations took part on any one band, and how committed eeach one was to
contesting, in that contest and also in an on-going manner.
This will also tell you which bands are growing and which are not, etc.
B. I've been doing VHF+ for about 45 years; in all that time, most of my
acquaintances have done some contesting for personal reasons (get new calls
in their logs, new QSL cards, new states or new personal records
(band/distance, etc.)) and not for recognition in QST or such. Most have not
done a full length contest either. Some have taken their time and made QSOs
with who and what they choose, occasionally only going to XMT to go after
something unusual.
C. Now that having a contest station on 50, 144 ,432 or 1296 ( even 222
and 2304 and up, if you don't mind not having the bands all in one ricebox)
is a matter of how much $$ you can spend on commercial equipment, many of my
old friends are out of the hobby and into other things that allow
differentiation by skills alone and not income. In fact, as I approach
retirement, I know that I can continue to do the kinds of things that I WANT
to do in this hobby only as long as my half-century of junque collecting
will carry me, because I can not afford to keep up with new commercial rigs
(that's for you younger/wealthier folks who don't have 2 kids getting
married this year, a 30+% increase in local taxes etc. to contend with) - If
any changes at all, I vote for those that reduce the real cost of competing
(and, please, don't respond with a story about how A11XYZ won the
Mid-Priairie division with a $5 rig on 50MC.- been close to there, but not
in the last quarter century).
D. NEVER reduce the number of bands for the June and Sept. 'tests! The
competition has increased the SOTA on all of the bands over the years - I've
seen it happen.
In some cases, folks have requested/pushed limitations merely because they
could not compete successfully with a MBMO group and want to 'win the big
one' [I remember a certain small group of very skilled HF contest ops who
assembled the best 50/144/220/432 station anyone could have affforded at the
time, and consistently lost to W2SZ/1 because they could not buy competitive
MW gear - so what did they do? Did they build gear? get lots of MW rovers
interested and available to work them? Nah- they started a letter campaign
to the League, to change the rules! They did not know, or care, that SZ
group had run into the same situation in the late '80s (look up W1FC) and
had to work HARD for years to build up the resources to overcome the MA
bunch].
Many of the super-single op stations that I have seen in the last 10
years have had to do the same things; they did not spring up overnight! This
is one benefit of our contests -- repeat competitors almost always learn
something new and come out better over the long run.
Geoff WA2GFP
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