[CQ-Contest] Contesting, Ham Radio and the Internet

[Mike Gilmer - N2MG]

Although some of the posts may have deteriorated to 
this issue (and money is ALWAYS an issue), the main 
goal, at least as *I* read in K1RO's post

http://lists.contesting.com/_cq-contest/200201/msg00145.html

is NOT that they are simply trying to save money. In 
fact, Mark never states that they are trying to save 
money, per se (although he admits that decreased ad 
revenue is a "complicating factor").

What the ARRL *does* claim is that it is trying to 
BALANCE the coverage.  Having 4% or 5% of the ham 
population get 10% or 20% of the pages (or whatever 
the numbers) is wrong in their minds - or at least in 
the minds of the membership.  The fact this rather 
small percentage of hams is one piece that moves and 
shakes much of the general population seems to be lost.

(I'll admit that the need for "balance" becomes more of
an issue in an austere environment - but it's my guess 
that contesting writeups and line scores have been a 
topic of conversation for a very long time.)

One good thing about the web and contesting is that it 
seems that the ARRL may actually be allowing some 
volunteer work to enter this world.  Any programming 
done to receive, process and present scores, logs, 
etc., is pretty much a one-time investment - with some 
obvious maintenance and improvements.  (If it's not, 
it's bad programming, hi).  With the right 
programming, Dan's workload might actually be reduced!  Just think of all the time he'd have if he 
didn't have to hand out UBN reports piece-meal?

Just to be clear, I would miss the line scores and I 
am against their removal (or relocation).  I think 
that contesting is so important to a vibrant ham radio 
that QST coverage should be expanded.  Nowhere can you 
find more passionate and technically competent 
individuals than at a gathering of contesters.  The 
unfortunate reality is that the ARRL is convinced (for 
whatever reasons) that current membership does not 
want line scores.  I wonder if the membership was 
"surveyed" to see if it would be "OK" to publish 
"replacement" pro-contest articles?

73, Mike N2MG
Contester, soon-to-be-displaced ARRL LM

On Tue, 15 January 2002, Glenn Rattmann wrote:

> At 07:04 AM 01/14/2002 -0800,  Mike wrote:
> 
> > If ARRL is serious about replacing the line score 
> > pages with an even somewhat equivalent number of 
> > contesting article pages, I think it might be a 
> > net gain.
> 
> How can that be a money-saver?
> 
> --K6NA


________________________________________________
PeoplePC:  It's for people. And it's just smart. 
http://www.peoplepc.com 


--
CQ-Contest on WWW: http://lists.contesting.com/_cq-contest/
Administrative requests: cq-contest-REQUEST at contesting.com


>From Silver Ward" <hwardsil1 at mindspring.com  Tue Jan 15 16:17:18 2002
From: Silver Ward" <hwardsil1 at mindspring.com (Silver Ward)
Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2002 16:17:18 -0000
Subject: [CQ-Contest] Contesting, Ham Radio and the Internet
References: <200201150450.g0F4oAWE014488 at contesting.com> <20020115000053.D16080 at w9wi.com>
Message-ID: <007a01c19de0$1b6dcb60$29e6bfa8 at ward>


> > Oh yeah, you have to learn Morse Code, though :-)
>
> And Morse is more obscure than Perl?
>
> $city =~ s/(\w+)/\u\L$1/g;
>
> Seriously, a certain part of the hacker (in the good sense) community
seems
> to enjoy obfuscated programming.  Surely fluency in Morse would not be
seen
> as a bad thing by such people!
> --
> Doug Smith W9WI

Exactly.  The techie competitiveness thrives on "I can do this hard thing
better than you.  Watch this!"  (bang, crash, screech, tinkle-tinkle-tinkle,
wobbadawobbadawobbadawobbadawobbadawobbada, thunk - sirens optional)

If only some hacker would "discover" the magic of sending encoded info
through the audio channel - there would be a stampede.  Perhaps the correct
method is to FORBID the use of Morse Code in some way.  The basic "Oh yeah?"
instinct should take care of the problem.  We could pay some popular band to
embed some subliminal Morse Code on a CD and then "leak" to the rock press
that it says, "Britney Spears is the Devil".  I think AA6TT has some
experience with Morse Code and music.

For my young nephews, I got their attention by giving them a Morse Code
buzzer, a table of the characters, and sending them postcards with "secret
messages" to decode.  One said, "Your mom eats worms" - now THAT was cool.
Maybe they'll latch on to it, maybe not - but the urge to hack runs deep and
true.

Hams are generally just FAR too linear...

73, Ward N0AX


--
CQ-Contest on WWW: http://lists.contesting.com/_cq-contest/
Administrative requests: cq-contest-REQUEST at contesting.com


>From Silver Ward" <hwardsil1 at mindspring.com  Tue Jan 15 16:26:12 2002
From: Silver Ward" <hwardsil1 at mindspring.com (Silver Ward)
Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2002 16:26:12 -0000
Subject: [CQ-Contest] Contesting, Ham Radio and the Internet
References: <Version.32.20020115062013.01b1b970 at filter.xontech.com>
Message-ID: <008e01c19de1$5940b5a0$29e6bfa8 at ward>


> >If ARRL is serious about replacing the line score pages
> >with an even somewhat equivalent number of contesting article pages, I
> think it might be a net gain.
>
> How can that be a money-saver?
>
> --K6NA

In the January issue, there were 5-1/2 pages of contest coverage (2-1/2 of
line scores) and 6 pages of Section News.  I think the general idea is to
get rid of some of those dozen pages and change the remainder to
contest-related editorial content with less focus on X-beat-Y.  So it saves
some dough and changes the focus.

73, Ward N0AX


--
CQ-Contest on WWW: http://lists.contesting.com/_cq-contest/
Administrative requests: cq-contest-REQUEST at contesting.com