[UK-CONTEST] IOTA from the DX point of view

[Alan Hydes]

Before we get off the subject of IOTA ...

The point has been made that we need to find a way to keep non-island stations happy so they don't loose interest.  I think there is a more important need, and that is to attract island stations from further afield to take an active interest, or to encourage people to travel further to DX islands... isn't that what IOTA's all about ?

Having operated the contest for 6 years from two of the closest UK islands (Isle of Wight and Isle of Man) and now for two years from SA006, I've heard both Euro and DX sides.  It is sad a fact that there are relatively few DX islands competing.  This is true of the Caribbean, North and South America and I suspect Oceania and the Far East too.  One of the reasons is clear - they don't stand a chance of challenging the big European-zone scores.  They will stand even less chance in the next few years as the sun spots disappear.   The key to this contest as with many others really is Location, Location, Location.

This isn't sour grapes for under-achieving.  We did almost as well as we could expect, but the sad fact is that we finished nearly 200 mults down on the big-guns in Europe despite large antennas and solid mult. hunting for 24hours.  So we left with a feeling of "why don't we just stay in the UK next year ??".   (The weather, warm sea and strange coloured drinks is one answer).

Maybe it is worth considering scoring or other incentives to encourage DX stations to compete or smaller stations to travel further ?  
(BTW the rule which bans scheduled flights is certainly a disincentive to travel far as a DXpedition with your 100w rig and some dipoles.  A lot of DX islands are only reachable by air.)

I can't immediately offer up a formula, but it would be interesting if anyone has any suggestions.  Incidentally a by-product of having more DX islands on would be increased interest for the non-island stations.

73s  Alan  G3XSV
ex of PJ2Y


--- StripMime Report -- processed MIME parts ---
multipart/alternative
  text/plain (text body -- kept)
  text/html
---