[UK-CONTEST] AFS

[Dave Lawley]

Interesting discussion. As a (too) long-standing member of the HFCC I'm 
probably in the best position to give the background.

AFS in its 80m form was introduced in 1975 - previously it had been a 
single-station multi-operator 160m event on a Saturday evening. It was 
the brainchild of Mike G3IAS. The first event attracted 51 clubs, and 
229 individual entries. The highest-placed club with fewer than five 
logs was in fifteenth place so some have always struggled to get five 
team members. Verulam won the contest - good to see them active again 
this year. G3WPF was top individual with 116 QSOs, and G3SJJ (remember 
him?) was second.

MCC mentioned by Peter G3LET was a separate contest which had rules very 
similar to the old AFS. The letters stood for Magazine Club Contest and 
it is long gone.

When SSB AFS was introduced - I think as late as 1992 but I may be wrong 
- it was felt that with the much greater bandwidth requirement of phone, 
and the packed nature of 80m on a weekday afternoon, three per. team 
would be more appropriate to limit the impact to other band users. This 
was also the reason for running the contest on Saturday rather than Sunday.

HFCC has from time to time discussed this anomaly. It is sadly the case 
that an increasing number of clubs are unable to field five CW 
operators. My personal feeling is that reducing the CW leg may have the 
consequence of reducing the overall activity level, since some who are 
currently cajoled into operating to make up the numbers won't feel they 
have to bother. On the other hand it is possible that more clubs will 
feel encouraged to enter, who knows? CVRS managed to rustle up four 
members for this year's CW event - that's one more than last year, but 
the point is that we entered anyway.

If my hunch is correct that reducing the CW leg to three per. team will 
reduce overall participation, then my record score from 1997 will be 
safe :-)

I'm sure the committee will look at this again in the light of this 
discussion on the reflector.

Dave G4BUO