[UK-CONTEST] Contest Calendar or Not

[g3ory at lineone.net]

If I was a volunteer member of the HFCC I think I would get pretty hacked
off at lots of folk being so critical on the reflector that it verges on
being abusive.  I can only wonder that there are people who are prepared
to put up with this. It is no single subscriber to the reflector who is
unable to maintain high standards of civility either.

As someone who rarely posts anything on the reflector, I am continuingly
grateful to RSGB members who give up their spare time to run the HFCC. 
Without them we would all be worse off.  So, from at least one subscriber
to this reflector, thanks a lot guys, I really appreciate all you do even
if occasionally I would prefer that the decision was different.

Bob
G3ORY

>-- Original Message --
>From: Dave Lawley <g4buo at compuserve.com>
>Subject: RE: [UK-CONTEST] Contest Calendar or Not
>To: UK Reflector <uk-contest at contesting.com>
>Date: Thu, 5 Dec 2002 11:17:05 -0500
>
>
>>HFCC have lost the plot and bottled out. Chris G3SJJ (past HFCC member
and
>>chair)
>
>I can't let this sort of thing go unchallenged. Sadly, Chris ended his
>time as HFCC chair having lost the confidence and support of every
>one of his committee members, and that obviously rankles.
>
>He refers to discussion, negative at times, on this reflector and I
>certainly
>regret there isn't more discussion of hardware, tactics, advice, rather
>than
>endless debates about rules. I have had several comments about the 
>content on here and a number (including some HFCC members) have
>un-subscribed. I haven't heard a single positive suggestion on this
>reflector about how we might capture the new generation of M3s and 
>turn them into contesters.
>
>There's obviously a debate about the LF cumulatives but let me remind 
>you of some comments about these contests that were on this very reflector
>
>just under two years ago, reproduced below. In small part, the cancellation
>
>of the cumulatives was a response to these comments, which just illustrates
>
>how dangerous it can be to take note of comments on an Internet forum.
>
>"activity was dismal by any standards, and this contest must surely be

>past its sell by date"
>"In the contest I found I ran out of contacts very quickly, the second
>hour was really slow"
>"Tough going again"
>"An enjoyable event once again but activity definitely dropped off towards
>the end"
>"As for the LF Cumulatives, they are fun as they are, but it would
>certainly 
>be interesting to try a sprint type event instead.. however I fear that
>entry 
>numbers/activity may drop if this change does happen"
>"Still considerably quieter in the second hour though"
>"Yet again tough going"
>"Note to HFCC, please switch off this contest's life support machine"
>"Only 16 in the next hour! where did they all go"
>"I do wonder if they could be reduced to 90 minutes thereby removing 
>the frustrating last 30 minutes"
>"...the contest is still a bit too long, erm about 2 hours too  long
>actually"
>"in the end the biggest signal wins in this contest, which is why I don't
>
>like it; there's simply no finesse, just wham bang thank you ma'am"
>"Trash the event and save the ionosphere"
>"best ever first half hour in a LF Cumulative Contest. Sadly I only just
>
>managed to get the same number of QSOs again in the remaining one
>and a half hours"
>"Having listened to some of the LF cumulatives - they are a 
>total waste of time for everyone.    Ditch the whole lot"
>"Looking at the RSGB HF contest calendar, a lot of the contests seem 
>to be 'outdated', especially those that encourage inter-G working, 
>without the requirement to work 'multipliers'"
>
>You can see that it's very hard to reach a concensus. We made some
>fairly radical changes two years ago, and are now getting a lot of grief
>
>over the cumulatives. Chris calls for changes in a number of areas
>and it's likely some of those changes would call forward more negative
>comment on the reflector. Chris has been pushing a multimode field
>day for a while but this does not have widespread support, and I recently
>heard from the DARC rep Manfred, DK2OY who confirmed that they also 
>do not support a combined CW/SSB field day.
>
>One change this year is the introduction of Cabrillo, which is becoming
the
>world wide de facto standard. We were pleased to see suggestions on 
>this forum that HFCC should accept Cabrillo but somehow Chris has 
>managed to caricature the change as 
>
>"... a tightening up of the log entry procedure with all most compulsary
>use of SD"
>
>I was the one who re-wrote rule 9 once we made the decision to go for
>Cabrillo. G3XTT and G3UFY put in a lot of work to prepare the ground
>for this. I don't see how the new rule can be seen as tightening up, but
>instead it standardises and it does not make SD compulsory at all.
>We continue to endorse SD since it supports all RSGB contests, and it 
>is easy for newcomers to learn. I agree about the drawbacks, and many 
>contesters will choose instead to use CT, TR, NA, Writelog, N1MM as 
>appropriate - all of which support Cabrillo.
>
>Just a quick plea while we're on Cabrillo. We still want to know what
>equipment and antennas you use, as it can help to add interest to the
>writeup. Please include this with any other soapbox comments in the header.
>
>I was on the HFCC when SSB AFS started, and we have discussed the
>anomaly of 5 per. team for CW and 3 per. team for phone several times.
>If the CW leg were reduced to 3, maybe a couple more clubs would
>come on, but already there are plenty of entries with less than five. On
>the other hand, some clubs would no longer have to work hard to get
>numbers 4 and 5 into the team, with the result that the overall entry 
>level would reduce. We also discussed raising the phone level to 5
>per. team but felt this would put intolerable pressure on the limited
>part of the band we use, especially in view of the deliberate QRM
>from SSTVers. Maybe this analysis is wrong - what do others think?
>
>Finally Chris tries to throw some mud by talking about "sinister" 
>aspects of resistance to rule change. There is value in having
>stability in rules, year after year, unless there is good reason
>to change. So although he and Clive have suggested starting the
>topband contests an hour earlier, we would also want to hear from
>others who are not past winners, and we would want to consider
>whether this really made sense in propagation terms, and was
>likely to result in higher G entry. What would certainly happen in 
>the first year, or two, would be that some overseas entrants would
>be unaware of the rule change and would miss the first hour,
>despite our best efforts at publicity. That's not in itself a reason
>for resisting a change if it is justified on other grounds, but if there
>
>was no strong case for change, then best to leave as it is.
>
>73, Dave G4BUO (HFCC member and past chair, who would never
>slag them off in public)
>
>A postscript having read Andy G4KNO's comments about the
>cumulatives. There is no conspiracy, it is cock-up. The diary seems
>to be done by someone at HQ, without knowledge of the Radcom
>Editor or anyone on HFCC. I suspect there were cumulative dates in
>the 2002 diary as well, with whoever wrote them just following on from
>the previous year. We were all unaware of this until he raised it on 
>the reflector, and it was not the subject of a split decision on the 
>committee.
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