[UK-CONTEST] Rule enforcement

[Donald Field]

It's gone quiet since the early responses to Richard G3CWI's posting, so I 
would just offer a couple of notes, lest it be thought the Contest 
Committee is not serious about rule enforcement.



1. Bandplan enforcement: I am constantly impressed by the way that UK 
contesters adhere to the bandplans set out in the contest rules, for 
example the somewhat irritating "gap" on 80m SSB (to conform with IARU 
guidelines), even when the allowed band is pretty crowded. But 
infringements, whether accidental or deliberate, do occur and when we have 
evidence to this effect we do penalise - there have been several such 
instances during this year's CC events, for example, of which the 
"culprits" will be aware!! With the IOTA  contest coming up, I should also 
mention that, last year, infringements were clearly listed in the 
Adjudication Reports (our equivalent of UBN) but not penalised. However, 
the email to entrants made it clear that in 2008 we will not be so lenient.



2. Bad Signals: VHF contesters will be well aware that one team was 
recently disqualified for consistently poor signal quality. Again, we 
endeavour to ensure that reports of bad signals are not due to poor 
receivers or mischief-making by other competitors, but we do what we can to 
obtain "hard" evidence.



Having made those points, I tend to agree with those who pointed out that 
most complaints about contesting rest not on infringements of the type 
listed above, but simply on contests filling the bands at weekends. I see 
no solution to that - every time a contest is dropped, it seems that 
someone organises another one to fill its place. And many of the recent 
events (Russian DX, EU Sprint) are run by special-interest groups, not IARU 
societies, so the only thing that would stop them would be lack of 
interest. As it is, interest levels remain high, so maybe the detractors 
should join in and see what the fun is about!



Don G3XTT

Contest Committee Chairman