[UK-CONTEST] VHF Contesting Activity

[David, G3YYD]

I have been reading the bleats about lack of VHF contest activity under 
the subject heading ARS 144MHz. Let us be honest, tinkering with small 
rules changes is not going to do much. look at the whole contesting 
scene from a possible newbie view and you will see why I think tinkering 
with the rules will have minimal impact.

If I was a newbie contester then would I go for VHF or HF contesting?

On HF I get a tremendous choice of contests with lots of activity. I do 
not need anything special to have a fun time. Now look at VHF just from 
recent emails it is saying to get QSOs the newbie needs a big antenna on 
a big mast with a big amplifier for just one band. (I will leave out the 
QTH with an all round negative horizon.) That is a lot of cost and 
effort. Much better to go in for a HF contest with 100 watt rig and a 
G5RV. Or other HF contests when such a set up will give multiband at not 
much cost/effort and the newbie will work all over the world as the top 
contest stations are really keen to work the small stations especially 
on the 2nd day of a 2 day contest.

So what does the newbie contester do? He/she goes for HF contests. The 
world has moved on with all classes of licence now having access to the 
HF bands.

On a personal note I do have a reasonable set up for 2M with excellent 
rig, antenna and amplifier, but I might enter one 2M contest a year. HF 
is more challenging with much higher levels of skill required and as a 
result more rewarding. I enter seriously 6 to 9 HF contests a year and 
practice on many more. I have already filled the family 2009 calendar 
for HF contests I want to enter so the XYL knows in advance. There are 
no 2M entries - they just do not offer the same level of challenge and 
reward as HF does.

If you want VHF contesting to thrive then first work out how to increase 
the challenge and the reward. May be replace an existing HF and an 
existing VHF contest with one that links 2M and 80M together so to win 
or score well need to do reasonably well on both bands. For instance add 
together the multipliers for both bands times number of QSOs. Could be a 
club/team event. May be have both bands in use at the same time 
encouraging SO2R operation, M2 and team entries, etc. Start thinking 
creatively to take in the current situation as the previous VHF captives 
have long gone to HF. May be the very popular RSGB 80M weekday evening 
club events by mode could include a VHF element as well widening appeal 
and the challenge.

David G3YYD