[UK-CONTEST] Jubilee Contest

[Richard Newstead]

Sometime we do seem to go round in circles here with topics bobbing to
the surface many times. The poor quality of certificates and the mean
way in which they are often awarded is no incentive to continuing
participation. If a family has lost "dad" for 24 hours doing a contest
and he comes 4th with nothing to show for it whatever, it can be
difficult to convince them that it was worthwhile. How much better if we
can track progress with certificates that everyone can see. An 8pt
listing in Radcom is hardly impressive!

I guess taking a family-orientated view may be unpopular here or seen as
unnecessary by the contest gurus but if you want to increase numbers
then thinking a little about the likely home circumstances of your
potential audience will be essential.

Incidentally, this was one reason that I enjoyed the 7MHz DX contest,
because it mostly took place through the night. In some ways it is a
pity that we lost this contest with its "restricted" section as this was
at least relevant to the "average" ham station.

The M3 situation is an interesting one. I have recently been helping a
new M3 to get on the air. I have found that nothing can be taken for
granted at all. He has never listened on the ham bands so every aspect
of the hobby is new to him. What chance of him entering a contest? -
zero for several years I would imagine.

On another topic slightly, I often wonder why it is that contests of all
sorts seem to get many more participants in the USA than they would in
Europe? Are they more competitive than us or is it something else?

73

Richard Newstead, G3CWI
Buy and sell  ham gear online at The Amazing Online Flea Market 
http://www.qsl.net/g3cwi


-----Original Message-----
From: uk-contest-admin at contesting.com
[mailto:uk-contest-admin at contesting.com] On Behalf Of Andy Cook, G4PIQ
Sent: 06 June 2002 10:05
To: uk-contest at contesting.com
Subject: RE: [UK-CONTEST] Jubilee Contest

I have to say that I think encouraging the new folks on HF into
contesting
by awarding certificates which they cane compete amongst themselves for
is
absolutely essential to the continued health of the hobby and
contesting.
There is stacks of evidence of the popularity of sections / awards like
this, both at local level (low power, limited antenna awards and
sections on
VHF in the UK) and internationally (popularity of TS section in WPX).
Cudos
to HFCC for doing this - I actually think that awards for the leading
station in each of these licence classes should be standard for every
contest.