[CQ-Contest] Encouraging Casual Participation in Contests

Mon May 1 07:55:52 EDT 2017

 Well, that's just it, Mike.

The presumption in this particular subthread is that if WPX is ever set up for LotW, the per confirmation fee will be the same as it currently is for the ARRL awards.  That's actually a heck of a presumption.

If I were asked, which I have not been, I'd recommend a flat fee for the basic award, rather than a per confirmation charge (on top of the actual fees for WPX itself).  Something reasonable -- it costs $$ to run and maintain the LotW server, after all -- but not outrageous or out of line.  Would $25 be out of line, considering the alternative of how much it would cost (even over a long period of time) to gather the physical cards themselves?

W5VX may accuse me of missing the point, which of course is out of context considering his PM to me.  But I don't believe that I have.

The simple fact is, TANSTAAFL.  Somewhere, someone has to pay the bills.  The ARRL can not continue to do so out of membership dues, and it is not unreasonable to ask those applying for these awards to cover some of the reasonable administrative costs.  If & when other awards are brought online, the same issue of covering those administrative costs will still exist.  We all wish it were otherwise, and we could go back to the days when the costs were hidden... but those days are long gone.

73, ron w3wn

On 05/01/17, W0MU Mike Fatchett wrote:

Especially when many awards are provided at no cost via a PDF file such 
as the WWFF and POTA awards. NPOTA awards had a cost but the LOTW fees 
were waived.

Are award costs the reason that people are not contesting or getting 
involved in the hobby?

W0MU

On 4/30/2017 8:09 AM, Bill Parry wrote:
> You have completely missed the point. $120 is not a big deal (well to most of us) but is the WPX award worth the cost? My perspective is that it is simply not worth the cost. If I want a piece of paper on the wall, I don't have to spend that kind of money...there are many certificates that can be had for less than that. The 5BWAZ certificate on the wall was about that cost. Do you believe that a WPX certificate has the same value as the WPX? Apparently some do!
>
> Bill W5VX
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Adam Mercier [mailto:adam at kenbrio.com]
> Sent: Sunday, April 30, 2017 9:03 AM
> To: Ron Notarius W3WN <wn3vaw at verizon.net>
> Cc: Bill Parry <bparry at rgv.rr.com>; lu5dx at lucg.com.ar; cq-contest at contesting.com
> Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] Encouraging Casual Participation in Contests
>
> Taking your math at face value, let's assume it's $500 for the physical cards. That figure makes the $120 seem less of a big deal. However....
>
> It's not a question of total cost, but the distribution that becomes staggering. How long have you been working on getting those cards? 5 years? 10? 20? When you gradually distribute the $500 across a significant span of time, it becomes more palatable. That's how credit cards and banks operate. But if you balance that against a 1-time expense of $120, that $120 is much more painful.
>
> My 2 cents...
>
> Adam, KM7N
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
>> On Apr 29, 2017, at 15:38, Ron Notarius W3WN <wn3vaw at verizon.net> wrote:
>>
>> Bill,
>>
>> I agree in principle that a quantity discount would be nice to have.
>> Especially if you're submitting 1000 cards at $.12 each... Namely
>> $120
>>
>> However, let's keep things in perspective. If you have to request the
>> physical 1000 cards from the domestic and DX stations, how much will
>> it cost you to obtain them?
>>
>> Let's say 400 of those cards are from US stations or US managers. So
>> that's
>> 400 letters sent at about $.49 each for first class postage... That's
>> $196 right there. Plus cost of cards and envelopes. And if you have
>> an SASE in with each, that's $392 just for postage. Easily can be
>> another $100 for envelopes and cards. So you're looking at about
>> $500. For the domestic 400 cards, we haven't even gotten into the other 600 DX cards.
>>
>> Suddenly, that $120 doesn't look too bad, does it?
>>
>> 73, ron w3wn
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: CQ-Contest [mailto:cq-contest-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf
>> Of Bill Parry
>> Sent: Saturday, April 29, 2017 9:37 AM
>> To: lu5dx at lucg.com.ar; cq-contest at contesting.com
>> Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] Encouraging Casual Participation in Contests
>>
>> I am a big supporter of LOTW and have used it extensively for award
>> submission. The WPX award is not one of them. I would like to use it
>> for the WPX but the cost is not acceptable. If I were to apply 1000
>> Prefixes at
>> $.12 per LOTW QSL, the cost is just too much. Using LOTW for some
>> awards just doesn't work financially, nor is sending 1,000 QSLs in for checking.
>> There needs to be a different method of applying for these awards that
>> require a lot of QSLs such as WPX.
>>
>> Bill W5VX
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: CQ-Contest [mailto:cq-contest-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf
>> Of Martin LU5DX
>> Sent: Wednesday, April 26, 2017 10:43 AM
>> To: cq-contest at contesting.com
>> Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] Encouraging Casual Participation in Contests
>>
>> Absolutely great idea.
>>
>> TBH, LoTW should become the standard solution for issuing credits for
>> other awards. National and local Clubs, Groups, could take advantage of it.
>>
>> We've been talking about this type of solution with LU1FAM and LU5FF.
>>
>> The ARRL could charge a small fee to those institutions using their
>> LoTW service to validate the credits.
>>
>> Win-Win solution!
>>
>> 73,
>>
>> Martin LU5DX
>>
>>
>>> El 26/04/2017 a las 11:23 a.m., Pete Smith N4ZR escribió:
>>> 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.
>>>
>>>
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