[UK-CONTEST] UK contesting - a bleak future ?

[Les Allwood]

    From a quick look at the callsigns on this forum, a large number of us started our amateur radio lives in the 1960s and 70s. It does not take a pair of rose-colourd glasses to look back and realise that it was a good time to be a part of amateur radio. The influx of Japanese black boxes, as well as the products of our own KW, were widening the horizons of the less technically able amongst us, and there was widespread enthusiasm. I recall wall-to-wall activity on topband for the old-style AFS and MCC contests, most clubs put out two stations in the ten watt NFD, and for VHF NFD every bump along the South Downs had a group operating with up to four bands. Concurrent with all this, there was dawn-to-dusk activity with WAB nets on several bands, each with large numbers of participants collecting or activating areas. Halcyon days indeed.

    Now look at things in the twenty-first century. Many contests are withering away, and how many clubs participate in any of the field days? Where, also, has WAB gone? Apart from a brief, rapidly extinguished, burst when the M3s arrived, it appears to be just a fond memory.

    As Derek points out, things are very different just across the Channel. France has an active contest population and, surely no coincidence, a thriving national award programme - witness the large numbers of stations collecting or activating mills/châteaux/islands/lighthouses. And they are not unique. The Italians, Spaniards, Belgians, and others all have both thriving contest and award environments.
    
    All this leads me to conclude that we have a uniquely British problem. It seems to me, and I am no expert, that we, as a nation, have developed a need for instant reward without commitment, combined with a limited attention span. This applies in all facets of our daily life - employment, entertainment, sport as well as amateur radio. The amateurs ARE there as the jostling crowds at the Epsom radio fair demonstrated, and just listen to the pile-ups for various special event stations on 40m. It is just that most people are not prepared to make an on-going commitment, whether for a few hours as in the case of a contest, or a few years as in the case of an award scheme. Combine this attitude with another unpleasant British trait, that of "knocking" anybody who is prepared to put their head above the parapet, and we have a worrying scenario.

    If my analysis is correct, then the HFCC is indeed between a rock and a hard place. It seems that there is only one direction to go. They must continue those events like AFS which, despite the disdain of "serious" contesters, continue to attract substantial support. They must humanely dispose of those ailing contests currently on a life-support machine. They must stop chasing the unattainable goal of a contest that will attract hoards of new licensees, and must recognise that those of us that care about contesting are dinosaurs from a bygone age. Maybe the idea, mentioned some while ago, of HFCC making awards to leading UK stations in other contests (like CQWW or WPX) may be the way forward, otherwise UK contesting will literally die out in the years to come - if it hasn't ripped itself to pieces by personal antagonism on fora such as this in the meantime!!!

Les Allwood, G3VQO

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