[CQ-Contest] Encouraging Casual Participation in Contests

[Pete Smith N4ZR]

We all agree, I think, that casual participants are a critical part of 
the total workable population in contests. I spent the first 40 years of 
my contesting career working contests as a quick and relatively easy 
source of award credits, and I suspect a large majority of the stations 
in any contest are doing some variation on this.

There is a reasonably simple and straight-forward way to encourage more 
of this, potentially yielding more people for us to work.  We need 
interconnection between CQ and ARRL contest databases, so that any 
contact that is in both stations' log in a given contest can be claimed 
for ARRL and CQ award credit without going through the QSL card process.

I'm not underestimating the programming effort involved, I hope, but 
surely some combination of volunteer and professional staff involvement 
can get it done. It could start small - perhaps a pilot involving the 
CQWW open log database and DXCC. Imagine the value added to LOTW if it 
were the hub for this process, and the potential increase in DXCC fees. 
Surely, this is a win-win proposition.


-- 

73, Pete N4ZR
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