[CQ-Contest] WARC Band Contesting is Really Not a Thing Now

[Jim]

I think an even bigger factor in the contest community not favoring contesting on the WARC bands was (and is) the desire to avoid the need for three more bands of competitive  antennas.


73  -  Jim   K8MR



> On Feb 6, 2020, at 5:28 AM, K3TN via CQ-Contest <cq-contest at contesting.com> wrote:
> 
> While I'm in favor of keeping with the gentleman's agreement of no contesting on the WARC bands, I'm not too worried about the VT QSO party allowing FT8 on WARC bands during its QSO party being the start of a slippery slope. I think it is a good think to periodically check to see if sentiment has changed. I think most of us on this reflector are old enough to remember early WARC enthusiasts being angry when DXpeditions started regularly causing pileups on the WARC bands - that sentiment has certainly changed.
> 
> On this area,at least among contesters - I don't think it has. When the ARRL DX Advisory Committee asked about changing the 5BDXCC rules to allow the WARC bands to be part of the "five bands" for the award, I was all for it - for the majority of ham operators who are 40 years old or younger, the WARC bands are just bands - any new radio they bought just included them.
> On the PVRC refector, I mentioned that at some point the hobby might say "Yes, the WARC bands are just bands - let's allow contesting on them" and the reaction was overwhelmingly negative from PVRCers. We all kind of realize it is nice to have some haven for non-contesters on those few weekends per year that contesting really takes over the bands vs. just actually adds activity - and often proving the bands are far from dead!
> 73 John K3TN
> 
> 
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