[CQ-Contest] [YCCC] lotw eye opener!

[Dick Green WC1M]

I think it would be more accurate to call this a "DXCC eye opener". The fees
are not limited to LoTW. The cost is similar if you send in paper cards for
credit and order the matching awards certificates. 

But with LoTW you don't have the cost of printing cards, buying envelopes,
green stamps/IRCs, international postage, bulk shipping cards to the buro,
buro handling fees, etc. Before LoTW, I spent well over $500 to get the QSLs
for Honor Roll and 5BDXCC, plus the DXCC card checking and awards fees. I
wouldn't be surprised if the whole thing cost me over $1,000, plus many
years of waiting for cards to arrive, anxiety over sending my precious cards
through the mail to HQ and back, hours of my time printing cards, pasting
lables, licking envelopes, etc.

I don't know the figures, but I suspect DXCC and LoTW are not big profit
centers for ARRL. There are salaries for data entry people (each with a
computer), managers, admin people, maintenance programmers, various servers,
a portion of a commercial-grade communications network, a portion of the
building and maintenance costs, etc. That doesn't include substantial
capital costs for developing the DXCC software (at least three major
implementations over the past 20 years) and the LoTW software. The fees
reflect the stiff cost of providing any kind of service in this country.

As for the cost of wood and paper contest awards, they aren't exactly free
either. How much have you spent on your multi/multi towers, antennas, coax,
control cables, rigs, computers, shack furniture, etc.? I got most of the
way to Honor Roll and 5BDCXX with a vertical, a dipole and used
transcievers/amps bought at hamfests. I think the total cost calculation
would favor DXCC by a wide margin, even including the awards fees.

All that said, there ought to be a way to order the 5BDXCC plaque online!

73, Dick WC1M

> -----Original Message-----
> From: David Robbins K1TTT [mailto:k1ttt at arrl.net] 
> Sent: Wednesday, September 21, 2005 6:09 PM
> To: YCCC; reflector cq-contest
> Subject: [YCCC] lotw eye opener!
> 
> What do you know, got 100 countries on 80m now on lotw... 
> makes 5 bands, phone, cw, mixed.  Ok, maybe now I should 
> apply for dxcc, never bothered with it before, just hate 
> sorting cards and all that crud.  So go through the web 
> application process, first I don't see a way to order a 
> 5bdxcc plaque... so ok, maybe I can get that later.. on to checkout.
> 
> $136.75!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
> 
> with no paper or plaque to show for it?!?!?!
> 
> if I get the certificates it goes up to:
> 
> $206.75!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
> 
> well, maybe I'll just continue to ignore dxcc and collect 
> more contest wood and paper.
> 
> 
> David Robbins K1TTT
> e-mail: mailto:k1ttt at arrl.net
> web: http://www.k1ttt.net
> AR-Cluster node: 145.69MHz or telnet://dxc.k1ttt.net
>  
> 
> 
> 
>