[Fourlanders] Fwd: New VHF contest rules

Fri Jan 2 02:25:45 EST 2015

Yeah, I saw that after I wrote my previous email.  Ward's explanation makes sense but raises another question of why the contest branch at ARRL is so under funded and understaffed that it takes a year for approved rule changes to make it into the contest announcements.  When I was on the VUAC I asked KX9X how many people made up the contest branch expecting it to be at least 4 or 5 people.  I was shocked when he said it was him and an admin that he shared with another department.  Anyway, it looks like, as usual, N6NB is muckraking for reasons that are most likely to his benefit.

73
Jim, W4KXY

Sent from my iPad

> On Jan 2, 2015, at 2:01 AM, Ron Rogers <ww8rr at charter.net> wrote:
> 
> I totally agree, Jim. Most of us know how Wayne works…..
>  
> But then the following from Ward Silver was posted on the VHF Contesting reflector which sheds a much brighter light on this rule change discussion and I now retract my previous comment about tasking Doug with any explanation……I think it’s all explained here >>>>
>  
> With respect to the new categories, there's nothing particularly odd about the timing.  The changes approved in January of 2014 (and publicly announced in board reports) have just taken a while to work their way through an over-burdened system.  Here's my take on it - not official, I'm not staff, I just edit contest writeups and help shovel on various projects :-)
>  
> The ARRL Board Programs and Services Committee approved the addition of Single-Op Unlimited categories to *all* ARRL contests at the January
> 2014 meeting.  This was based on a recommendation in 2013 by the CAC that was approved by the Awards Committee, THEN passed to the P&SC which THEN passes it back to staff.  Here's the report:
>  
> http://www.arrl.org/files/file/About%20ARRL/Committee%20Reports/2014/January/Doc_16.pdf
>  
> Note that the CAC recommendation (all reports are online at
> http://www.arrl.org/committee-reports) only referred to HF contests but the P&SC extended that recommendation to *all* ARRL contests.  Note also that while the P&SC report refers to the category names as "Assisted", the actual word used in the titles is "Unlimited".
>  
> Yes, it would have been nice to have this all announced and implemented a year ago but about the time of the P&SC directives in January, the ARRL Contest Branch Manager abruptly abandoned ship, leaving a rather large backlog and no one to manage any of the existing processes, much less add new categories.  KX9X, N1ND, and I shared those duties during the replacement process and the current manager W1MSW was hired and started work in July.  Matt has done an awesome job getting caught up and making sure all the processes are working as well as they can.  And there was this Centennial thing right in the middle of that, as well.  
> Part of his catch-up job has been to update the rules to include the previously approved categories and this has now been accomplished with the January VHF Contest being the final one to get the new SOU categories.  Without the unexpected personnel turnover, this would have been announced and implemented in early 2014 and the timing would not have been an issue.
>  
> The ad-hoc committee was not approved until the July 2014 board meeting, six months after the extension of SOU to VHF+ contests was approved. 
> Here's that report (see page 2):
>  
> http://www.arrl.org/files/file/About%20ARRL/Committee%20Reports/2014/July/Doc_16.pdf
>  
> Now...as to the ad-hoc committee's potential rule changes.  The first part of this email should give you some idea of the speed at which changes occur.  Anything the ad-hoc committee comes up with will have to be placed on the agenda for the P&SC committee's next meeting.  The recommendations of the P&SC committee will then have to be approved by the Board at *their* next meeting.  If I am correct in understanding the process and assuming no report from the ad-hoc committee has been delivered, no rule change decision could be made by the board until July at the very earliest and even next January is probably optimistic.  
> Furthermore, a comprehensive set of changes will likely require changes in data processing at HQ and that will have to get in line with everything else ARRL IT has on their plate in a very tight budget year.
>  
> In my opinion, VHF+ rule changes will happen - but it will be a while before they are actually implemented just because of the way governance happens in the ARRL and because of limited IT resources. To stay up to date and prevent surprises, watch for the various committee reports as they come out to find out what staff is being directed to do, status of ongoing projects, and if there are any other dependencies on budget or resources to get them done.
>  
> 73, Ward N0AX
>  
> From: Jim Worsham [mailto:w4kxy at bellsouth.net] 
> Sent: Friday, January 02, 2015 1:40 AM
> To: Ron Rogers
> Cc: <whensley11 at comcast.net>; Fourlanders
> Subject: Re: [Fourlanders] Fwd: New VHF contest rules
>  
> I am not going to comment on these new rules one way or the other.  I will say that, having worked with N6NB on the VUAC back in the day, if he is against these new rules it is because it somehow hurts or disadvantages his VHF contest operations.  Wayne is interested in what effects Wayne not what is good or bad for VHF contesting.  Just so you know.
>  
> 73
> Jim, W4KXY
> 
> Sent from my iPad
> 
>> On Jan 1, 2015, at 12:30 PM, Ron Rogers <ww8rr at charter.net> wrote:
>> 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
>> 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
>>  
>>  
>> 
>> 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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