I've kept quite on all of this debate because I really can't figure out how
I feel about it. I'm fairly ambiguous about "assisted" contesting. For me,
the only assistance that I would like is to be able to use APRS and have all
contesters able to see and use that information. That's not a big enough
issue though for me to support a change in the rules and I don't even think
it would be a big enough issue for me to chose to compete in an "assisted"
class if it became an option.
There is one HUGE difference between VHF and HF contests and its a
difference that I think justifies not doubling the number of categories.
That is the number of participants. In the big HF contests, it looks like
there are often 2000 to 3000 logs entered. In VHF, we're lucky to get
1000. If you start breaking it up further, the ability to compare one score
to another is really diminished.
In order to really evaluate your own station, plan and efforts, you need a
good pool of people with whom to compare yourself. You need for those other
stations to be operating roughly in the same manner as you are in order for
that to be valid. By creating assisted and unassisted categories, you're
going to make that pool of other stations pretty small.
I put myself in the "opposed" category for this suggestion to the VUAC, but
if it happens, I'll not be the one lamenting it either. I think it would be
different if we had a much larger group of contesters for VHF.
Steve
K4GUN/R
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