[UK-CONTEST] Contest Results...Russian Booklet!

[Lee Volante]

Hi Roger, Nigel,

Maybe not quite *every* contest, but it's fair to say I've been able to keep 
a close eye on the results publication times, websites, any booklets, 
certificates, writeups and analysis etc. provided for a variety of events 
from a number of sponsors. It's all part of the marketing of the overall 
event.

Co-incidentally, as I've been continually impressed by the service supplied 
by the Russian DX Contest team, I gave them (and the results booklet) a 
mention in the latest CDXC Contest column which I submitted a few weeks ago. 
(Nigel - I received my booklet a few weeks before you it seems.)  One thing 
I did note is that the booklet contains only a small amount of advertising. 
Considering the growth of the contest worldwide, producing and posting the 
booklet and certificates, even with any cost benefits of eastern European 
production, must still be considerable. I suggest there must be additional 
benefactor assisting.  Domestically we've not been able to repeat this 
feat - for example the IOTA booklets in years gone by were great, but not 
sustainably produced. Other sponsors have been finding similar pressures as 
we know (e.g. DARC with WAEDC) and some sponsors have been producing results 
CD's instead.

As 'additional' RadCom space over and above what is allocated now is a 
perenial problem, I wondered if a one off or annual RadCom CDROM might help. 
If people are given a present, or have contest related information literally 
delivered to their door, they're far more likely to read it than if they're 
asked to be pro-active and go searching for something on the Internet. 
Following a thread on the CQ-Contest reflector about providing relevant 
information on contesting, wouldn't it be great to include a copy of rules, 
results, more analysis, and maybe most importantly - tie in the human 
element - lots of photo's from Field Days, or as we're now seeing, some of 
the semi-professional video's being produced and placed on the video sharing 
websites. That might help dispel the "shouting numbers and causing QRM" 
image from the non-contesters, or perhaps entice some of the ambivalent 
ones. But the cost here is still high. The Yearbook has contained a CD or 
DVD recently, but does this reach enough people ?

Previous RadCom contest coverage hasn't been all that bad, in my opinion. We 
accept that RadCom obviously needs to reflect the different elements of the 
hobby and we should only expect our proportionate share. We've also been 
given a number of extra slots annually for NFD, SSB FD, VHF NFD, 
Commonwealth, IOTA. (The eagle eyed RadCom reader will have spotted at least 
one article hasn't (yet) been published as normal after submission 
though...) We had two bumper advertising articles for the Commonwealth 
contest this year too.  We can always ask for more, but I don't think we're 
realistically going to see very much.  The RSGB board minutes make note of 
diminishing advertising revenue and difficulties in finding advertisers. 
Whilst contesters have shown themselves to be numerous, passionate and 
vociferous this week in their replies to the editor, which will help define 
exactly what "fair share" is, we alone cannot prop up the advertising. 
Whilst I do see a lot of contest booklets etc., I'm still in the dark 
regarding most national society magazines contesting coverage.  We've heard 
about the excellent REF magazine coverage in the past, and I think most 
people are aware of the ARRL QST coverage, but when discussed previously I 
said this was a very small sample size to compare RadCom with, and we've not 
heard anything else since. Can anyone contribute?   (This sounds like one of 
my regular fruitless pleas in the CDXC Digest!)

Several of the respondents earlier in the week have played upon the 
importance of contesting to the hobby overall.  Another quote from the 
recent IARU R1 Vienna meeting: "In his speech during the opening ceremony of 
the HAMRADIO 2006 exhibition in Friedrichshafen Dick Harms, PA2DW, president 
of VERON reported about the outcome of questioning the very young radio 
amateurs in his country: Contests were named as the most popular and 
interesting part of amateur radio!"  So even if we can't 'save' amateur 
radio ourselves, I think we do see contesters as being a major crutch 
supporting the hobby overall and there is risk in downplaying it's 
importance.

What most disturbs me about the May RadCom issue is that there seems to be 
some indication of an unfair editorial bias against contesting coverage.  If 
the May results presentation was a change of policy, it would have been 
prudent to at least discuss it with the affected parties.  If it was forced 
upon because of lack of space, as has been pointed out the layout used was 
very wasteful on space and could have been done much better. There doesn't 
seem to be a single compelling reason why the May contest column ended up as 
it did. Previously all callsigns have been printed, and all results, and 
there was no complaint.

The many replies to the editor and the general manager have had an effect. I 
trust that some new relationships will be forged with the RadCom editor at 
the AGM this weekend and we can look forward to a more positive situation 
going forward. Watch this space !

73,

Lee G0MTN

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "G3SXW" <g3sxw at btinternet.com>
To: "UK-Contest" <uk-contest at contesting.com>
Sent: Friday, April 27, 2007 9:16 PM
Subject: Re: [UK-CONTEST] Contest Results...Russian Booklet!


> Lee/G0MTN strikes me as the man for this job. He enters every contest 
> known
> to man, so must have all these Results booklets neatly filed away.
> 73 de Roger/G3SXW.