ARRL CAC report - 7/96

[frenaye at pcnet.com]

This is one of the reports from the July ARRL Board meeting offered in 
September QST for the cost of reproduction and mailing.  I got the OK to 
pass this along in electornic format.  (Any input you might have for the CAC 
should be sent to cac at arrl.org or to the CAC rep for your ARRL Division)

				73 Tom


July 1996 ARRL Contest Advisory Committee Report to the Board of Directors

June 22,1996 
J.P. Kleinhaus, AA2DU 
Chairman, ARRL C.A.C. 
29 Dirubbo Drive 
Cortlandt Manor, NY 10566 

ACTIONS TAKEN SINCE LAST BOARD MEETING 

As reported to the Board of Directors in the last report of the C.A.C., 
there were several items under study as of January 1996. Herewith the status 
of those items: 

1) The removal of the Yukon/Northwest Territories (VY1/VE8) section as a 
scoring multiplier in ARRL Sweepstakes. After much discussion within the 
committee and further input from Tim Ellam, VE6SH (RAC representative to the 
CAC), it has been determined that the removal of this quasi-section is not 
in the best interests of the ARRL. The CAC has found that to follow this 
course of action would drastically change the flavor of the ARRL Sweepstakes 
in a negative fashion, and therefore we do not recommend a change at this 
time. 

2) The "dual-citizenship" issue for individuals wishing to count their 
contest score for more than one club in the club aggregate competition, 
provided that the two clubs are not competing within the same club 
competition category. While this issue was popular at the beginning of its 
tenure on the CAC agenda, it did not remain that way. It became readily 
apparent to us that this change would certainly cause more harm than good. 
The possibilities for abusing this rule by the formation of "paper clubs" 
made up of groups of individuals within a larger contest club was obvious 
after discussion. While the CAC acknowledges that it might be nice for some 
people not to have to make a choice as to which club gets f heir points, 
this is not a realistic scenario. As in the "real world," a decision will 
have to be made by the operator as to which club receives the benefit of his 
or her points. The CAC does not recommend any further action on this issue 
at this time. 

ITEMS UNDER DISCUSSION 

The CAC is currently studying two items; an overview follows: 

1) The CAC has been studying the current ARRL award for highest scoring 
single-op in a club. Under the current structure, it is possible for an 
individual operator to win this certificate and not have the highest point 
donation to the club. The problem stems from not including the 
single-op/assisted (i.e., +packet) scores for consideration for this award. 
The scenario can be this: There is no single-op allband entry, but numerous 
single-band and assisted/all-band efforts. Not surprisingly, the single-band 
entries score but a fraction of the assisted/all-band entries, but the 
single-band entrant becomes the club's overall high-scoring single-op. The 
CAC is looking at three possible ways to resolve this issue. A vote and 
recommendation will be forthcoming before the January 1997 Board meeting. 

2) The CAC is actively studying the creation of a new Novice/Technician 
oriented competition. This new event would tentatively be called "Sprint 
NT." 

Some of the basic rules have been hammered out within the committee, and we 
are in the process of seeking membership input to fine tune them. The 
framework already being discussed consists of the following: 

a) Time period would run from 7:00 AM Saturday to 1:00 AM Sunday EST. 
b) ALL Novice/Tech (+) frequencies may be used. There would be a separate 
winner from each license class (Novice/Tech). 
c) CW QSO's count 6 points each, SSB/FM QSO's count 2 points each. 
d) Multipliers consist of ARRL sections + DXCC countries. 
e) Multipliers count only once per band, regardless of mode. 
f) QSO's count once for each band/mode. 
g) ONLY Novices and Techs can call CQ. 
h) Provision for an "Elmer" to help, but NOT actually make QSO'S. 

There are three other items being considered by the MSC for addition to the 
CAC agenda. If the MSC assigns us any of those items for study, they will be 
reported to the Board in the January 1997 CAC report. 

COMMITTEE OVERVIEW 

The CAC has been less active these past six months than in any similar 
period in recent memory. The major re-engineering of the Advisory Committee 
Terms of Reference and Standard Operating Procedures is largely responsible 
for this. It has been a difficult adjustment both for advisory committee 
members, and as far as I can tell, for the MSC and Board of Directors as 
well. Now that the processes are becoming more familiar to all, it seems 
that the advisory committees will become productive once again. 

Again, I want to stress the importance of E-mail to the day to day 
operations of an active committee such as the CAC. It would be short-sighted 
for any Director to appoint a member of their Division to the CAC for any 
other committee for that matter) who does not have the capability to 
communicate by E-mail. Not to discount the opinions of those members who are 
not "wired," but it truly is difficult to comment on discussions when the 
rest of us have finished that topic four weeks ago (or more). 
Respectfully submitted, 

J.P. Kleinhaus, AA2DU 
Chairman, ARRL CAC 

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