[CQ-Contest] USA WRTC Teams - Have a Contest

[Jeffrey Clarke]

I'm surprised that no one has come up with the idea that the
US teams could be picked by having an "on the air" competition.
It would be like the Indy 500 qualifying for the big dance !! That way
there would be no questions or politics involved in how the teams were
selected. We all just found out that the CCF was going to host the WRTC
less than a month ago and we were only given until June to submit our
list of operators. Not a lot of time.

  To have an "on the air" competition would involve teamwork between the
ARRL and the 13 contest clubs that had the task of picking the team
members. We could also get help from other contest clubs that are on
that list of 13 clubs. We would also need an extention from the CCF
from the June deadline date.

Here are some ideas how we could accomplish this :

1) We need to know who wants to be an competitor at WRTC. The list that
    W4AN has on contesting.com has only 45 calls on it. So if you want
    to be considered then let it be known. While we are at it why don't
    we make each entry be a team entry.(pick your teammate now) So,
    say for example KU8E and K9PG want to be considered as a team then
    that would be one entry. Your entry to enter the competition
    would be due by a specific date. Entries would be open to all.

2) We need to pick a contest to hold our competition. The IARU
    contest would be a perfect choice but it's not to far away and might
    be too soon before everything could be organized. Plus the scoring
    is different for each part of the country... unless we modified it
    for our needs. My suggestion would be to use SS. We would have a
    competition during the CW weekend and another during the SSB
weekend.

3) We would have a host station for those who do not have their own
    station and those that do can use their own station (for their team)
    with a small modification. That would concern the antennas that are
    used. We should strive to have "equal stations" and I think a
    triband beam at 60 ft and some type of wire antenna would be fair.
    Each station would also only run 100 watts.

4) We would have a judge at each station to make sure no cheating is
    going on like running high power or using monobanders if they were
    available at that station. That judge can not be from a contest
    club that would be the same as the competitors. So, for example say
    K9PG/KU8E operate from the W8AV station. A tribander is setup at
    W8AV 60 feet up one of his towers. Since K9PG is a member of SMC
    and KU8E is from MRRC the judge would have to come from another
club.
    K8AZ lives close by and is a member of NCC and volunteers to be a
    judge. He could be the judge for our entry. Of course to make this
    all work we need people volunteer to be judges in different parts
    of the country. This is where the other contest clubs come into play
    (besides the 13 original ones) because they could provide those
    judges or even host stations if need be..

5) Each team will operate multi-op in CW and SSB SS using the same
    rules that were used in WRTC-2000 concerning SO2R. You have a run
    station and another for listening. SO2R (transmitting on the backup
    radio) is not allowed. You would operate 24 hours like a normal SS
    entry.

6) The combined scores from CW and SSB Sweepstakes weekends would
    determine the winners. The top 5 scores from the west and the
    top 5 team scores from the east would be the teams that the US
    sends to WRTC-2002. If one of the winners has to drop out the
    entry who place just below them in their region would take their
    place.

7) We would also need the help of the ARRL to process the logs
    quickly. If that is not possible we could enlist the help
    of log gurus such as N6TR, N6AA, K8CC, K3EST and others to
    process the logs and compile the results. Each entry would need
    to email their logs in within 24 hours from the end of each
    competition.

8) If the ARRL gets involved in this maybe they could offer pins for
    working all the WRTC teams during SS. Having the WRTC entries in
    SS might actually increase activity in SS....


    I think this would be a fair way to pick teams. The propagation
in each of the call included in each region ( east and west) doesn't
differ that much. Plus the east region guys will be competing against
others in their region ... not those in the west region. the same goes
for the west region.. Plus this is a cheap way to have a WRTC like
event
because we will use existing stations ( with a small modification) I
would think if someone can afford to go to Finland that buying a
tribander if needed would be a small expense for them....


                                    73's  Jeff  KU8E




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