[Fourlanders] Fwd: New VHF contest rules

[Ron Rogers]

Doesn't appear this will affect our W4NH Mult-Op operation in Jan. But it
would be interesting to have our Director Doug, K4AC, comment about what
approval process this latest set of rules changes actually went through
before being enacted.

 

 

Ron

WW8RR

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From: Fourlanders [mailto:fourlanders-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of
whensley11 at comcast.net
Sent: Thursday, January 01, 2015 11:22 AM
To: Fourlanders
Subject: [Fourlanders] Fwd: New VHF contest rules

 

For those that don't subscribe, this from the VHF reflector.

 

Happy New Year, everybody!!

 

Kim - WG8S

 

 

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The new rules for the January VHF contest, just published online yesterday
(12/31/2014), are very interesting--and very different from the rules
proposed by ARRL's board-level Ad Hoc Subcommittee on VHF Revitalization in
November.  The ad hoc committee requested feedback from the field with a
Dec. 15 deadline.  The proposed rule revisions and member feedback were to
be considered by the ARRL Programs and Services Committee at a meeting just
before the annual meeting of the full ARRL Board of Directors in
mid-January--or so I assumed from what I read.

 


Meanwhile, someone (presumably the headquarters staff) drafted new rules and
put them into effect for the January VHF contest.  The new rules create
three new entry categories: single operator unlimited high power, single
operator unlimited low power and single operator unlimited portable.  This
will bring the number of categories in the January VHF Contest up to 13.
During the years when the largest percentage of licensed amateurs in the
U.S. participated in VHF contests, there were only two categories (single
operator and multioperator).  There were only six categories as recently as
2007.  "Assistance" will be permitted in the new "unlimited" categories but
forbidden in the other single operator categories.  Any rover who uses
assistance will be placed in the unlimited rover category where scores
cannot be counted in the club competition.

 


In contrast, the rules proposed by the ad hoc committee would allow any
operator to use assistance, regardless of entry category.  No new categories
were proposed.  Rovers in any category were to be allowed not only to use
spotting assistance but also to do such things as announce their arrival in
a new grid square on a repeater, on the internet, etc.  Rovers in the 10 GHZ
and up contest already announce their arrivals at new places on repeaters,
at least in California and nearby states.

 


There's certainly room to debate the merits of the staff-written version of
the rules as opposed to what the board-level committee publicly proposed.
My own opinion is that there are already too many categories in VHF
contests, including several that attract only a few participants.  I don't
think adding three more categories for assisted single operators is the
answer.  I think it's time to allow modern forms of assistance such as
spotting across the board.

 


But what's more interesting to me is that the new rules seem to have been
adopted before the board-level Programs and Services Committee or the full
Board of Directors could meet and consider the issue.

 


This gives me a real sense of deja vu.  I'm not a member of the current ad
hoc committee, but I was attending ARRL Board meetings as an elected vice
director in 1991, when two very important changes in VHF contest rules were
implemented without any discussion at a board meeting (unless I slept
through the whole thing).  League Lines in the May, 1991 QST announced two
new categories in VHF contests:  limited (four-band) multioperator and
rover.  Until then, all multioperators were in one category and rovers were
treated as single operators (with their scores in various grid squares
listed separately).  Hindsight tells us that the limited multioperator
category caused a large drop in activity on the higher bands and took away
incentive for groups to upgrade their stations to new bands.  It did, of
course, create a way for smaller multioperator groups to win without having
to compete with the best-equipped groups in the northeast.  And the rover
category led to all sorts of controversy--and four major rule revisions over
the ensuing 20 years.

 


Whatever the merits of the new rules, I wish rule changes of this magnitude
could be formally discussed at the ARRL board level, or at least by a board
committee, before being enacted.

 


73, Wayne, N6NB

 

 

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