[CQ-Contest] contest & QST bashing, redux

[jljarvis]

From: "Ford Peterson" <ford at cmgate.com>
Date: Tue, 23 Jul 2002 16:20:04 -0500
Subject: [CQ-Contest] Contest Bashing

Have you ever been working a contest an run into somebody demanding that you
to crawl back under your rock?  I have heard it.  So have you...

There is a huge contingent of hams, our director's constituents too, that
hate contesters.  They wouldn't stop on a road side for an opportunity to p_
e in your face if they saw you burning.  They hate you.  And I mean hate.
Why? ... Who knows.  The point is they are vocal and perhaps the ARRL
is listening to that group at the same time they listen to this group --
(net = zero.)

The question is, how much of this is really economics and how much of it is
political?  It would be impossible, politically speaking, to publicly
support the contest haters.  We're too big a group.  Likewise, it must be
coming increasingly difficult to support contesters -- because the contest
haters are growing in number.  What better solution than to blame the
economics of the few pages in QST?  Any comments?
-0-

Yes.  My monitoring during the week, at odd hours, suggests that the bands
are increasingly UNoccupied.  It is true that contests produce bedlam
and disorder, and contention for frequencies, and I'm sure they seriously
anger people in various constituencies.

It has been variously observed that contesters are a)opinion leaders, b)majority 
constituents of ARRL, c)majority of licensees, and d) better trained communicators, 
e) with better equipped stations.  And they smell good, too, I suppose.  Without 
data to prove any of that, all arguments are only words in a sea of words.  

Is there survey information available from CQ, QST, Contesting.com, and other sites
which, when assembled, might allow us to make some defensible general assertions 
about the 'sport' and the dimensions of its community?   Does this suggest a 
project for someone?

For the record, I favor the online reporting of timely results, the conservation of 
trees, and printing more interesting stories about contests, rather than line
scores, which generate about as much enthusiasm as pickled beets.   

Rather than bashing the ARRL directors for leading....let's encourage them
to CONTINUE to lead, by expanding the editorial content.

N2EA