[UK-CONTEST] G4PIQ/P ARRL SSB and other stuff

[Andy Cook, G4PIQ]

Unplanned extension to a work trip during the week scuppered plans to do the
ARRL SSB 'properly' since there was no time to fix the broken stuff at the
station. Hoping to manage to do that this week and get on for a new
experience for me this weekend - BERU......

ARRL with 3.5 hours operating, 100W and 25m of wet string @ 10ft looked like

Band QSOs Mults 
------------------- 
160: 
80: 
40: 
20: 50 20 
15: 69 28 
10: 22 10 
------------------- 
Total: 141 58 
Total Score = 24,534

I've been watching the Cabrillo debate with some interest and tongue biting
here. I can only directly comment on this from a VHFCC perspective. 

We take that approach that getting folks to enter a contest is the most
important thing, and to make that happen we try hard not to put unnecessary
barriers in their way. We'll include entries from almost any format of
electronic log that we get that we get sent - (I don't think we've ever
bounced one) converting stuff is almost universally quicker than typing up
paper logs. Thankfully, we have an excellent log checking tool written by
G0GJV that will read pretty much any text format file into the checking
database. The approach we try and take is that a contest is about radio
operating and not doing paperwork. 

Having said that - it's important to recognise that - even with this tool -
getting files into the right format and manually transposing cover sheet
information like equipment details, section etc is probably more time
consuming that the process of contact cross-checking now. Therefore - trying
to move as many logs as possible across to a common format, with the cover
sheet details in a common machine readable form, is a really important move
to make. Getting as many people to submit in Cabrillo achieves that.

>From all that the HFCC have said - I don't see that they're doing anything
different from what I've described above. Cabrillo appears to be a preferred
format rather than a mandatory one, and their 'Log Mangler' tool seems to
enable other formats to be sucessfully handled. I assume that this policy
will continue, and with continued publicity and peer pressure, they should
get the vast majority of entries in the preferred format. As long there is
no mandatory migration to Cabrillo submission before all commonly used
software can produce the correct format, I see no problems.

If you look at KC1XX's band breakdown for the ARRL SSB, on 20m they worked
at least 318 UK stations cf. 192 DLs - and more UK stations than DLs on all
bands. We have to do stuff that encourages these latent contesters out there
to get on and enter. Just listening around I heard a lot of Mx3 stations on
working the folks - we need to captivate these people into HF contesting
while their interest is hot.

Andy