[CQ-Contest] WHAT IF

[Eric Hilding]

My very good friend Jim Neiger, N6TJ, wrote:

> What do we have to lose??

Althought Jim and I have not always seen eye-to-eye at times over the past 40+ years of our FB friendship, he tendered some excellent suggestions and also asked the salient question of the day.  The answer, of course, is "Nothing".

The concept of innovation and change are not strangers to both of us, since Jim was the one who scribbled "NCCC" on a cocktail napkin when we both exited an NCDXC meeting to the bar area for continued "private discussion" about the NCDXC's refusal to support "Contest" log submissions from club members.  I consider Jim to be the "Father of the NCCC", and I confess to being the "radical" responsible for the continued controversy which led us to that night of brilliance on Jim's part.  But don't take my word for it:  http://www.nccc.cc/history.html .  Thank you again, Jim, for your innovative thinking and support!

I see similarities in the processes here with Randy's suggestion.  Since I didn't return to HF until November, 2003, I missed seeing this relevent article by Pete, N4ZR & N2MG:  http://www.contesting.com/articles/401 (Tnx, Syl, for the URL) which also contained such "forward thinking" concepts.

Here are a couple of additiional thoughts.

1. To avoid the fear problem relating to Sunday and possibly not having enough 12/24 operators around to work near the end of the contest, let's continue to think creatively here.  Instead of 12/24 choices and some possible  "rest periods" therin, an option would be to further split the 12/24 classes up into 6 hour on-air segments of choice (with no breaks), but with at least one 6 hour segment being mandatory during the LAST 6 hours of the Contest :-)  This would also provide more flexibility for strategy choices, and not penalize any players due to time-of-day/night band propagation shortfalls.  So, a 12 hour entry would have two 6 hour components, and a 24 hour entry would have four 6 hour components.

2. To further motivate all the LPCS (Little Pistol Contest Stations) to put more hours in the chair, maybe now is the time to consider incorprating an additional carrot ("playing field levelizer") similar to what I did in the LQP rules for antenna & output power, but to use an "Adjustment Factor" number so those that want to run full power can still do so (vs. having to crank down actual output power): http://www.k6vva.com/lqp/lqprules.html .  Remember, an objective is to get more operators on the air for more hours than they would normally operate.

3. To expedite log checking, perhaps several of our programming skills endowed fellow Contesters might volunteer to modify a copy of the current log checking Robot code, and log submissions be made to a separate destination/website.

In addition to sponsoring 5 NCJ Subscriptions as Awards, I'll also spring for 2 plaques (circa $50 each) this first go around.

73...

Rick, K6VVA * The Locust