[CQ-Contest] Recruiting Women into Contesting

[Ward Silver]

> Marta KC0FXI had an interesting idea at our local ham club when talking
> about things we might do as a club.  She suggested a contest on the theme
> of a treasure or scavenger hunt.

Hi Merri,

Good "outside the box" thinking!  You know, you don't have to start a brand
new contest to do this.  Just pick a contest and set up a scavenger hunt
within it.  As long your rules are compatible with the sponsor's, it
increases activity and makes it more fun for everyone.  Also encourage your
participants to submit logs to the sponsor.  Run it on the honor system to
keep the overhead down.  If it takes off as a major activity, there's always
room for arguing about judging later.

For example, something like this might be fun during CQ WW...

- Work all continents
- Work 15 zones
- Work 25 different countries
- Work stations with each of the 26 letters at the end of their calls

This is far too timid and close to the existing way of "doing business",
though - I'm sure the creative minds out there can come up with a lot more
interesting things.  Radio bingo, with the last letter of the prefix and
first number making up the counters?  Sequential QSOs that form some kind of
pre-determined phrase or sentence?  You get the idea...and be sure to give
away some kind of certificate for collecting all the counters.

Call it CQ WW - Collector's Edition and stand back!

73, Ward N0AX