[UK-CONTEST] G4PIQ/P Reports for 21/28 SSB and EU SSB Sprint

[Andy Cook, G4PIQ]

Mike, G3VAO said

> The logical extension of this is to do away with all RSGB HF 
> Contest - even
> that may be a good point as the RSGB would then save the 
> costs of the HFCC.
> Silly really.

However - that's absolutely not my point - my proposal is that we run SOME
national contests within the framework of larger international events. So we
publish and locally adjudicate (quickly) UK events, with compatible
exchanges during international contests. 

A national contests organisation is essential to

1. Actively build and run the support framework in-country that encourages
new folks on, issues national awards, publishes national tables, sets the
framework rules, build award and table frameworks to encourage newcomers
like the M3 guys who it is so good to hear on and running in contests.

2. Run appropriate domestic contests. I'm not saying that all should be
killed. Events like AFS, NFD, 160m events, BERU and IOTA are well supported
and entirely appropriate to the national organisation, although we may all
have views over whether the rules for each are absolutely right. Those which
I think are broken are those like the 21/28 events and the former 7 MHz
event where there is no co-ordination with other international events, yet
they have a contest structure which is UK works the rest of the world. 

I'm also not pointing any fingers at the HFCC for the decline in the 21/28
events. I think that the drop in QSO volumes (even in decent conditions)
available is probably a reflection of folks worldwide having less leisure
time available, and also the advent of things like DX Cluster making less
folks casually tuning the bands - that's just life. Big international events
like CQWW, WPX, WAE and IOTA are actually growing, and I just feel that we
should concentrate our activity around those weekends. 

We should also recognise that events like 21/28 aren't a whole lot of fun
for folks running 10W (or even 100W) and a wet string sub-urban antenna -
there just isn't the volume of easy to work stations about and after a
couple of hours, it's very slow and dull. You only get an acceptable rate in
this sort of event over a period of some hours by calling CQ, and that is
really only effective with reasonable antennas and/or more power. Events
like CQWW and WPX have enough activity from folks with good signals that
someone with a relatively poor signal can by constantly occupied working
stuff in S&P mode. For this reason, with the ability to work inter EU, that
I would prefer to build national events around WPX or CQWW rather than WAE. 


Andy