[CQ-Contest] Youth and Contesting

[Stephen Bloom]

Late to this discussion ...

A few people have brought up that EU has growth in the contesting community
and a younger demographic.  What I have noticed is that EU has a long
history of active clubs and club stations.  This is part of the social
aspect that Mark is talking about, and critical.  It also means that the
folks who do come in to the hobby get to see something other than a bunch of
75 plus y/os ..playing EmComm poobah on a HT.  

I think Clubs, contesting, and the intersection of IP and RF actually *are*
the future of this hobby.  It is getting tougher to put together a decent
home station with the proliferation of HOAs and CCRs in the States.  As far
as attracting younger people ...the bad news is that we aren't attracting
all that many.  The good news is we do get some ...and enough to have an
idea how to do it.  (Up here ..Rich KL7RA would invite people to see the
station, and sit them down to make some Qs during slow times ..sometimes it
was just a nice experience for someone to get to play with a "big station",
sometimes, he saw the "raw material" for an eventual team member).
Somewhere in this thread ...someone mentioned how a lot of hams are
....shall we say ....part of the "great unwashed"  (sometimes literally!).
I've found that contesters ..while ...being quite diverse ...are generally
quite successful professionally and socially ..(to some extent you have to
be to either afford to do it, or to find acceptance for multi ops).  

As for who amongst those durned young whippersnappers might be interested
..I'd steer folks less towards gamers, they can be quite smart, but they are
"end users."  The guys/gals who would be likely to stick around are more
what ..in the old days ..we would call "hackers."  I don't mean people who
break into sites etc ...I mean the kids who are interested in how all the
computer stuff works, who pick up some programming and network skills on
their own.  In a way, it's a reverse of something a lot of us (including
myself) did in the 70s and 80s.  A lot of us hams were also early computer
hobbyists.  For me it led to a career ..and I'm far from the only one.  It's
one reason ..that even though I'm not excited by remoting, I accept it as a
given.  Some day there will be "Single Op/Multi Station" and "Multi Op/Multi
Station" and we'll get used to it.  The hacker types will take to SDR big
time, and pull it in directions us normal folks haven't even thought of.
The technology itself is interesting.  It's also why I own a IRLP node, even
though 99.8 pct of the time, I'd rather watch Donald Trump give hair care
advice than actually chat on it.  


73
Steve KL7SB


-----Original Message-----
From: CQ-Contest [mailto:cq-contest-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of
Mark
Sent: Monday, March 28, 2016 3:35 PM
To: CQ-Contest at contesting.com
Subject: [CQ-Contest] Youth and Contesting

This is an interesting discussion.

When someone asks me why I just don't just use the internet or a cellphone
instead of a radio my usual response is on that basis why would someone
paint a picture instead of just taking a photo or cycle 100 kiliometres
instead of driving it in a car?  It's not all about using the most modern or
even efficient way to do something.

On youth and contesting one point that I haven't seen made is that
contesting isn't all about being competitive.

Many take part for other reasons like chasing DX, handing out a multiplier,
or just to have a bit of fun.  The vast majority do not operate more than
24 hours in the 48 hour contests.  You can see that in the stats.  Back in
2013 I posted on the reflector some stats from the CQWW SSB and CW contests
that year on single op all band entries.  In SSB only 5% operated more than
36 hours and in CW it was 8%.  80% and 73% operated less than 24 hours
respectively.

Having teenage kids and coaching a teenage sports teams I can tell you now
it is not all about being competitive with young people either.  The social
aspect is important as well (especially with girls teams).

Therefore if you want to introduce new people to contesting (youth or
older) you need to figure out what is important to them, not what you think
is important, and work around that.  For example guys like me with families
are not going to spend every weekend contesting or long hours at the rig.
Therefore you need to suggest things for them to try and for periods which
fit around family commitments.  If they are DXers suggest good contests to
work new countries etc.  If they are super competitive help them put a plan
in place to achieve that. Maybe they like coming up with new antennas to try
in a contest situation, let them.  With young people if they just want to
have a bit of fun with their peers make it that.  Not everyone wants to run
stations at 200/hr or learn how to do so (I know some on this reflector may
find that hard to believe).  Ultimately be flexible!

In that vein I also think would be helpful if we had contests with
objectives other than rate and multipliers to bring some variety to things
but I am also realistic enough to know the contesting community is
incredibly conservative when it comes to change.

73
Mark ZL3AB
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