[UK-CONTEST] coming back into the fold.

[brian coyne]

Hi fellers. After several years absence due to working excessive and silly hours I have now got back to a normal pattern, will be building a station and putting my snout back into the contest trough although I was beginning to wonder if we would have many RSGB events left to work. I too am awaiting the 2003 contest calender to discover what deletions have been made this time, I wasn't around last year to see the reaction from the members but obviously there were enough protests to get the cumulatives re-instated, (tnx to andy summers for the info from his complimentary logbook, wonder how you get one of those?).

If I remember rightly when the 'guide' was first introduced it was included in the Sept or Oct Radcom, now Nov and Dec have gone by and we have our fingers crossed for Jan. So that's good news about the cumulatives, now how about re-instatement of the 7mhz?. It seems that the philosophy of hfcc is that it is not a rate contest then try and 'bin' it. It's just as well the vhf boys have their own committee otherwise they would have no contests at all! Were beru and nfd not such sacred cows that they dare not touch then those would likely go the same way.

The bottom line for beru, 7mhz & 21/28mhz is that if we get good band conditions there is a good entry, in poor conditions guys give up, reducing the activity levels which gives no incentive for the foreign stations to hang around and get interested.

I have seen for myself, when in the past I ajudicated contests,that in the early hours of the event most of the usual contesters are there but many fade away if they find the going tough and also, regretably, some big guns give up if they see they are falling behind the leaders and even worse there are others who will go right through to the end and do not submit a log if they think it unlikely to make the top three, Make it a new year resolution to submit a log for future events , no matter how brief your participation, it will let them know that we are here and that we are still very interested. It will also please them to see an increased log count which appears to be the only criteria on which they seem to make these decisions, I'm sure a careful analysis of callsigns appearing in the logs, however few contacts each made would show a pretty steady figure for each year.

We have all been around long enough to know band conditons for these events are cyclical following the solar cycle, inversely for lf, and that too many times when it should be good our hopes are dashed, that's how it is, has always been and will continue to be , it is the nature of the beast. Knowing all this why then do people moan and groan either about conditions or the darc, ref or whatever other contest may be going on at the same time, these events are not new they have been around for years. In a nutshell we know in advance,propogation apart, what to expect from the event we are about to enter for example beru and 7mhz are going to have many hours of slow activity but we can get a few hours sleep through those small hours without missing a lot, It seems to me that there are too many 'rate' men who take a look to see what's happening, if propogation is good they say, 'hey this is good', get stuck in and stick with it maybe even until the end. The reality is oft times propogation is mediocre these same guys disappear pretty quickly and condem the contest as a waste of time. The tragedy is that they are listened to by our committee.

The hfcc should realise that each of our contests has it's devoted followers, whether the event be long or short, rate or skill competition and because the latter are much inferior in numbers does not mean that they should be treated in any way differently by having their events extinguished. The committee was formed to serve all the members  and not to look for a reduced workload by getting rid of our contests which began before the majority of us were even licenced.

I know it's been mooted many times before but just why not consider opening some of our contests up?. With beru give points for inter uk working which would really help those 'dead hours', re-allocate some of the trophies if necessary, with computers to do the work the committee could play around with the scoring points to come up with something workable, surely it's worth a try?.With the 7mhz allow foreign stations to work each other, that would liven up the band, remember that the higher bands have closed during our night time making 40 a potentially busy band, when lots of stations are working that interests others, activity breeds more activity.Again a scoring systemcould be played with to find a satisfactory answer.I personally was happy with things as they were, but if that's what it takes!!.

Since our committee seem to share a view that these contests are ailing then they are and have let us down badly by not trying something new, being prepared to let them die or booting them out with no effort made to and save them by doing or trying to do something .different.

Do I have any support or do I get shot down in flames?.

Still wearing my cynical hat let me answer the subscriber who a week or so ago asked about tactics for afs.

Tactic 1. Go to live within 50 mile radius of Oxford ------------------- Good chance.

Tactic 2. Go to live witihin 50/100 mile radius of Oxford.------------   50% chance.

Tactic 3. Live more than  100 mile radius of Oxford -------------------- No chance.

 

Finally for those of you who have met my wife Maureen, I am very sorry to advise that she passed away  almost one month ago. After 40 happy years I find it very hard to take.

Brian Coyne.

 




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