[CQ-Contest] ARRL Field Day

[jpescatore at aol.com]

AB7E said:



>I think you may be missing the point.  Young people today don't find 
>basic operating for ham radio particularly enticing, so pushing them to 
>work on those skills first isn't likely to be much of a recruitment 
>success.  The whole idea was that young people find computers more 
>interesting and less "fringe geeky" than ham radio by itself.  Is a 
>youngster more likely to want to sit down at a station with point/click 
>display on a monitor, or at a station with a knob?

>Forcing people to look at the hobby the way we did 40 years ago isn't 
>going to be much of  a draw.

To some extent, you are right - if the goal is to just increase the number of contesters, then recruiting
video gamers by making radio contesting look like video gaming is probably a better way to go. But,
if the goal is have more young operators like RZ9UMA get into contesting, different story. I don't think
there is anything wrong with either approach.
The main issue is Field Day in particular - it isn't really a contest, it's an operating event that has does
have a tradition and yes, - part of the attraction is that it really does look very similar to what it did
40 years ago. Doesn't mean everything (or even most things) should look like they in 1970, but even my
19 year old, Tweeting/texting/Facebooking/can't-drive-without-GPS daughter wears an analog watch and was
forced (by me) to learn math (even though she will always use a calculator) and to learn to write (even
though, outside of signing her name, she will always type.) To me, FD is part of that kind of tradition for
newbie hams.

By the way, for Joe's particular scenario (die-hard, long-time FDers) it makes perfect sense to see if
using spotting and some of Pete Smith's suggestions will make it more fun and maybe extend their
skills.
73 John K3TN