160 Contests

[Dave.Wilson at conner.com]

It is obvious from some of the recent comments made on this and other forums 
that there is a lot of discontent with the present 160M contests. Whatever 
situation develops, it is up to the organisers to address those issues and 
make adjustments to the rules accordingly. Since the begining of time, 
mankind has exploited every loophole in every rulebook, amateur radio 
operators are no different. It is time for "us" ie those interested and those 
uninterested in 160M contests, to put forward a cohesive set of requirements 
that the contest organisers should include in their rules.
Those of you who care enough to send in your ideas can either E-Mail them 
directly to me if you would rather remain annonymous, or send them to this 
forum for all to debate, either way I will collate as many of your ideas and 
opinions as I can reasonably accomodate and send them to both CQ magazine and 
the ARRL.The more people respond the better, if we only get 20 opinions we 
can not expect the situation to change.

I will starty the ball rolling, here are my list of requirements for 160 
contests, please let me know what you think.....
             
1 Each contest to last from "local dawn to dusk" not from 'x' hours Zulu
2 Points based upon radial measurement from stations QTH.
3 Band split into 3, .....non participants....US EAST + US West.....DX....
4 DX to US qsos can only be between windows ie split freq only.
5 Each organiser must appoint someone who's job is to tune the band logging 
infringements. Disqualification rewards bad operating behaviour.
6 QSO must include serial number, lets reintroduce some skill into the qso
 
Thats enough to begin with, I will await the shark attack...
As far as packet and more recently internet spotting is concerned that is 
something for general debate, I personally think that the word contest has 
lost its meaning in the context of our activities...its hardly a contest if 
you pit David against Goliath, no matter what the fable said, in the real 
world the big guy wins.....So how far do we go to make more qsos than the 
competition??   Answer...as far as the rules allow. What do we want to do 
about this fiasco??

Thouhts, ideas, grumbles and mumbles, lets hear it all and lets DO SOMETHING!

Regards to you all, without you 160 would be really boring!! 

Dave AA0RS / G3SZA
   

>From richard.frey at Harris.COM (dfrey)  Wed Feb 28 02:44:33 1996
From: richard.frey at Harris.COM (dfrey) (dfrey)
Date: Tue, 27 Feb 1996 21:44:33 -0500
Subject: 9a/k4xu in 160 SSB
Message-ID: <13385b80 at maila.harris.com>

     
     
     Just for grins, did ANYONE over there hear me during the weekend?  
     Did anyone work 9A2TW, 9A3B or 9A2AJ?
     
     I thought being one hop farther away than ON4UN and the lousy 
     conditions were the reasons I heard nothing from NA, but I also gotta 
     consider things like my rx is dead or antenna is busted....  I'd hate 
     to be an alligator!
     
     Dick,  9A/K4XU   in beautiful downtown Croatia