And……with the exception of the
opening up the use of APRS rover data by EVERYONE now (not just multis), the
opening up internet spotting clusters use by EVERONE (not just multis), and the
idea of (God forbid !!) being able to “Self spot” now (this is
radical), most of the other proposed changes simply clarify rules that were
modified before, but still did not accomplish what the original rule change was
intended to do.
We have been screaming for years at the
VHF conferences about the ARRL not embracing the idea of internet use and self
spotting during contests, with the argument that it shouldn’t
matter where you get the info about a station being on the air, you STILL have
to make the contact to gain the points.
And, previous VHF-UHF advisory committees tried
and failed to get these ideas accepted since the “Old Guard” was
still of the DXCC and HF contest mindset of Thou Shalt Not Self-Spot.
So…this is surely refreshing and I
certainly hope that, because these latest proposals come from the Programs
& Services group sub-committee whose big focus is on exposing and growing
the hobby, that they may be more easily embraced by the Board. It certainly
would be a giant step forward in matching today’s VHF-UHF technique with
today’s real time information resources.
A lot of you were not around when we old-timer
VHF contesters were still using ARRL sections as multipliers. Again, the NE had
a big advantage of more section scoring on multiple bands so there was major
push back. But in the end, we DID get grid square scoring contests and it
really helped bring new life into VHF-UHF contesting. Hopefully, these latest
changes would breath new life into these same contests.
Ron
WW8RR
From: Fourlanders
[mailto:fourlanders-bounces@contesting.com] On
Behalf Of
Sent: Thursday, November 13, 2014
7:54 AM
To: Bill Pence; Kim Hensley
Cc: Fourlanders
Subject: Re: [Fourlanders]
thoughts??
Biill,
Not sure of who all is on the distribution but just one small note in defense
of the ARRL. I have been in some discussions with them and they do see
the VHF/UHF contesting community as a part of the issue. Specifically the
NE has a huge advantage based on populations density and they like that
advantage, thank you very much don't do anything that would mess with
that. Certainly in 2014, amateur radio without the Internet is like a
fish without water so I am sure these welcome changes will boost scores.
Not sure it will lead to a differential advantage for anyone, but like you
said, welcome to the 1990's
Johnny
-----Original
Message-----
From: Bill Pence
To: Kim Hensley
wow. welcome ARRL to the late 1990's!!!
On Wed, Nov 12, 2014 at 7:02 PM, <whensley11@comcast.net>
wrote:
Here's ARRL's contest rule announcement
AND solicitation of comments for VHF/UHF/microwave contesting.
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