[CQ-Contest] ARRL DX CW Contest in QST

[jpescatore at aol.com]

Back when QST first stopped including the full line scores in contest results, I looked at that issue of QST and divided the number of total pages by the number of ad pages - I forget the ratio, but that is pretty much the financial metric for any publication. I then wrote the ARRL board and QST editor WB8IMY and asked if it wasn't possible to get the enough sponsorship to have at least 1 full results article per month.
The answer was they didn't think so, plus general surveys of the readerships usually showed a desire for fewer pages on contest content, not more. I can accept that - membership organizations and magazines need to look at both financial results and membership preferences. Heck, NCJ is talking about dropping full line scores on Springs and NAQPs.

Personally, to touch on Frank's point, I think the biggest spur to casual or potential contesters is seeing their call in the results - the line scores. That's why Field Day results still include full line scores, I'm sure. Soapbox comments, too!

While much of the target audience of casual and potential contesters is perfectly content to look at results on line (vs. on dead tree material), the ARRL isn't a fast mover on the web front and there are many non-ARRL contests, too - there are a lot of places to look to find your score and compare to others, let alone your previous years.!

The best single place to look is 3830scores - Bruce Horn has just done amazing stuff over the years. With a few sponsors (or one big one) , could it be the one stop shopping for uploading your log, seeing your results and all the other cool stuff it already does? If not commercial sponsorship, a GoFundMe kind of effort the WWROF could run?

73 John K3TN