[UK-CONTEST] IOTA - to run or not to run....

[Chris Tran GM3WOJ]

Hi Lee et al

It will take us a few days to work out our score (GM5A EU-008)
but these are my initial thoughts about this year's IOTA contest :-

1.  DXpedition status - if we were not an Island expedition,
then I don't know what is !  (the island of Islay where we went
to has a tiny airfield and a regular ferry service 2.5hrs to the
mainland)  It's a ridiculous rule to exclude this type of operation
from the 'Island DXpedition' category - yes we want to encourage
the 'one man in a rowing-boat' DXpeditions, but there must be a
revisiting of this definition, please.   I also think that unless IOTA
is made more attractive to 'non-island' stations and stations outside
Europe, then it can't continue to develop in the longer term.

2.  To run or not to run ? - as the sunspot cycle decreases, the
need to run stations diminishes - what would any of us have given
for any band to open to JA for even 1 hour ?!  For an inexperienced
operator, it's hard to understand the need to stop running on a band
just as they have created a 3-pt pile-up, and to ask them to QSY to
another band in search of that elusive 15-point pile-up.

3.   Aargh - how much do I hate IOTA software - one of our 2 PCs
must have had some sort of hardware incompatibility, because
despite rigorous pre-contest testing, we again lost about 2 hours
because of computer problems (NA 10.54)   Changing to a spare
PC failed to clear the problems, so we just had to live with the
difficulties, and re-boot the PCs every few hours when they crashed
or went 'out of sync'.    Did anyone using more than 1 PC not have
software problems ?

4.   One difficult question - is the enjoyment level of IOTA in proportion
to the effort level ? .. mmm... barely, I would say - if Writelog is as good
for IOTA as everyone is now telling me, then maybe this will improve ?

It's very interesting reading everyone's reports, and thanks to everyone
who worked GM5A.
OK - back to washing the mud off feeders !
73
Chris    GM3WOJ