[CQ-Contest] Stimulating Participation was: Limited Antenna Height Category

[Jim Smith]

I'm trying a different way to increase contest participation.  I invited 
a bunch of newbie, no-ticket, folks taking the VECTOR club licence class 
to come to my QTH and op for CQWW SSB and SS SSB.  They each got 2 hours 
of formal training in contest operating with about 50 min of actually 
making Qs.  (Check out my 3830 stories for details.)  Those who came 
back for SS got another 2 hours of more advanced training.  Of the 16 
people, I'd say that about 12 of them were really turned on by the 
experience.  Tonight they write the basic licence exam.  In VE you can't 
get on the HF bands without 5 wpm so now they're asking if we're 
offering a code class after Xmas.  We are.  They're also asking if the 
club will help them with antennas.  How could I say no?

It's too early to tell whether this will actually translate into more 
contesters although a previous and much less structured effort has 
produced one.  If you got VA7IRL for a sweep in SS you can thank me.

The point I'm trying to make is this.  If you want to see more 
contesters, you might try growing some.  The local club's licence class 
is a good place to find the seeds. 

I was dubious at first about sharing the big contests with others and 
started off using state QSO parties for training.  The trouble was that 
it was sometimes a long time between Qs so I, somewhat grudgingly, 
invited the newbies to participate in the big ones.  I'm now glad that I 
did.  It's a lot of fun seeing their excitement when they make the first 
Q in their life and it's someone in Eu or Australia.  Mind you, I don't 
know how I'll feel when I have to start sharing the CW ones.

So, (tongue planted firmly in cheek) how about a couple of new 
categories?  One for stations with trainees occupying up to 25% of the 
time and another for the over 25% crowd?  When I start doing SO2R 
training will I be wanting another 2 categories?  Guess I'd better learn 
how to do it myself first.

73 de Jim Smith   VE7FO

Pete Smith wrote:

> At 10:20 AM 11/30/2004, Russell Hill wrote:
>
>> I would like to suggest this thread consider something else--keeping 
>> the casual operator in the contest.  I have read many comments about 
>> the necessity to have the casual operators in the contests-- they are 
>> involved in the majority of Qs-- we need them!
>
>
>
> Rusty goes on to suggest that a limited height category would help 
> keep participation going (or growing), but I wonder if that's really 
> true.  I have seen stats suggesting that perhaps as few as one in 8 or 
> 10 stations logged in CQWW even bothers to send in a log.  Doesn't 
> that imply that most people get on to fatten their DXCC totals, for 
> the inherent thrill of working DX, or even just to have something to 
> do on a cold fall weekend?
>
> If we really want to stimulate increased log submission in CQWW, I'd 
> suggest that a good way to do it would be to implement direct linkages 
> between the CQWW database and LotW, such that when a QSO was confirmed 
> by receipt of both logs by CQWW, it would be considered confirmed for 
> DXCC purposes.
>
> This needn't be done in real time, or involve any elaborate 
> inter-database communication.  I'm confident that ways could be found 
> to do it that would not affect CQWW's hard-held position that logs 
> submitted to them will not be disclosed to anyone.  A harder problem 
> may be achieving the requisite level of trust between the two 
> organizations, even though things seem much better now than in the 
> past, when ARRL would not even mention CQ contests in QST.
>
> If the cultural divide is still too wide, maybe an easier challenge 
> would be for the ARRL to do this for its own contests.  I bet that 
> participation, as measured by log submissions, would benefit 
> substantially.
>
> 73, Pete
>
>
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