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Re: Topband: DX Window-Redux

To: topband@contesting.com
Subject: Re: Topband: DX Window-Redux
From: Herb Schoenbohm <herbs@vitelcom.net>
Date: Thu, 06 Dec 2012 14:56:31 -0400
List-post: <topband@contesting.com">mailto:topband@contesting.com>
I would say with all that is already wrong with the ARRL 160 meter contest which is a beehive of CQ machines, Dx or no DX, window or no window, that for them to make such a statement (this segment should be used for intercontinental QSOs only, as a mere suggestion, not a rule, is disingenuous. First the contest planners have already turned their back on DX. DX was included as an after thought. Why, because 160 meter legend DX-er W0NWX-W0DX-VP2VI was ARRL President and lived during the winters in BVI a scant 7 miles from U.S.VI. So there was an attempt, a poorly designed one for inclusion of one person based on politics rather than fairness. DX in the U.S. Territories seems to be of little or no value except for a multiplier. There weren't any PR stations on in the last event and if I would have carried out my plans for a NA boycott, no VI multiplier either. All the DXCC U.S. entities in the Caribbean are all counted as VI or Puerto Rico even though KP1 is about as rare as a place on earth for anyone to work on any band, but it counts for the VI.

Now Tom suggests that I should be sanctioned for calling CQ inside the window...even though I am really looking for EU and Asia. I must not answer NA stations calling because that is Intercontinental but a PJ of a P4 a few hundred miles south of me can do so without impunity. Makes no sense as some continents like Asia extend half way around the world. Intercontinental or intercontinental is a broad brush that falls apart when DX shows up and they direct you where to go. If you don't listen to instructions then you don't work them, period. This is the way that self regulation works.

I would say that the ARRL suggestion is just that, a suggestion. If they were just not following an old worn out tradition of Viking Rangers and HQ-129 Receivers, and if they want to be certain they mean what they say, all the need to is change the world from "should" to "must". But you know the CAC can not even suggest this as they must be "tasked" by a secretive internal council at HQ to rubber stamp their suggestions. So nothing is going to change.

We all go where the DX is and if ZL9HR on 1826 says up 10 ...lets not kid ourselves, we are gong to call up ten, and start calling. Today with very directional RX antennas for serious DX-ers the kindness and ethics of the "gentleman's" band should be enough. This seems to noticeably fall apart during the ARRL 160 Contest disaster......which few really like anyway and so many complain about.

In direct contrast, we are all redeemed at the end of this month by the Stew Perry Distance Challenge that everybody likes and the rules are straight forward and simple. DX is! You don't even have to score your results and everyone gets a category they can choose from.

The ARRL160 Meter event always causes more ruffled feathers and the TBDC is just the opposite. What Lew and Tree came up with is substance. What a board room of insiders at HQ foisted on 160 is all about symbolism and about working some ARRL sections, not about developing the skills to work weak signals on a crowded band. I have been trying for years to get them to change this but all I get is some sort of arrogant slap down. I though that the league itself is supposed to remember their own motto and that motto should extend to TB'ers as well.

CU in the Stew during the Christmas season and watch how the DX crawls out of the woodwork to get in someones logs. It is a contest that those that try the most with the least have a chance in being recognized. The Stew is really the anti-alligator anti big gun event which is never drudgery like the plethora of CQ machines across the band.

73

Herb Schoenbohm, KV4FZ




On 12/6/2012 12:40 PM, Tom W8JI wrote:
I stand by my suggestion and I don't see my suggestion as nonsense in
the least. Go here and read section 6.1
http://www.arrl.org/160-meter - The ARRL who host this contest state
plainly that this segment should be used for intercontinental QSOs
only, ergo: the DX window.

Since US & VE are disregarding this directive and using it selfishly
to the detriment of the others in the contest who are playing by the
rules, I say the offending stations should be penalized for ignoring
the rules. What is nonsense about that?>>>>

That is a good suggestion, because it is what the contest rules suggest. It is a place for intercontinental QSO's, and W/VE should not CQ there.
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