[CQ-Contest] Encouraging contest participation

[Ron Notarius W3WN]

What "loss of revenue" for the ARRL?  

Can't we discuss this without the snide little quips?

The irony of that as far back as the late 1950's, possibly the early '60's,
the ARRL DID award DXCC credits for QSO's in the ARRL DX contest that were
verified by cross-checking.  Of course, that was a different era... and I've
been told that the many reason that this ceased was that the increase in
(obviously) paper logs, as the contests grew, made the (manual) procedure
cumbersome and virtually impossible.

When the digital age began, many DX'ers began questioning why this couldn't
be done with computer systems in place, which led directly to Logbook of the
World.  Which, I understand, is not at present breaking even on costs (let
alone being a "revenue generator" as some would have you believe)

In any case, Pete's suggestion wouldn't cost the ARRL anything anyway.
Think about it.  It's one thing to have the cards or confirmations
available.  You still have to apply for the award, it wouldn't be awarded
automatically!

73

-----Original Message-----
From: cq-contest-bounces at contesting.com
[mailto:cq-contest-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of Pete Smith
Sent: Wednesday, June 17, 2009 7:17 AM
To: CQ-Contest at contesting.com
Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] Encouraging contest participation

Dave's right about the potential value of encouraging more casual 
participants.  Just as happened to me 54 years ago, participation for 
purposes other than winning a certificate will result in some 
percentage catching the bug and becoming competitors.

One thing that would be a big boost to participation by 
non-contesters would be to give award credit for contest QSOs that 
have been verified (cross-checked) by the log checkers.  Surely, it 
would be a fairly trivial addition to the log-checking software to 
have it generate a separate list of the verified QSOs in some pretty 
universal format, which the awards folks could use to grant credit 
toward DXCC, WAS, WPX, WAZ or whatever.  Talk about quick, low-cost 
gratification, obtainable nowhere else but through participation in
contests!

I can hear the screams now about diluting the "integrity" of the 
awards, but cheating scenarios involving collusion among participants 
in a contest to fabricate QSOs are pretty far fetched, and should be 
pretty easy to detect.  I suppose people might also point to the loss 
of revenue by ARRL, particularly for DXCC, but I truly wonder if the 
awards program is a profit center for them, or more a question of 
loss mitigation.

73, Pete N4ZR 

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