[UK-CONTEST] Bad Publicity

Thu Jul 3 07:05:26 EDT 2008

>From various conversations over the years i think that what most annoys 
other users in the local rag-chew category is not being able to use "their 
frequency" because of  contests, the thought of moving to a non-contest band 
of out of the contest frequencies doesn't seem to occur - when this is 
suggested the response is either "why should i", or "x wouldn't find us if 
we did that".  The abuse received over the years from these people i find 
really hard to take, especially when operating a good 3KHz away from them 
and being accused of running a KW when i'm running 100W but using my rigs 
filters to cut out their splatter !  Mike G4IUF
----- Original Message ----- 
From: <uk-contest-request at contesting.com>
To: <uk-contest at contesting.com>
Sent: Wednesday, July 02, 2008 5:00 PM
Subject: UK-Contest Digest, Vol 67, Issue 3


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> Today's Topics:
>
>   1. Bad Publicity (Richard Newstead)
>   2. Re: Bad Publicity (Bob Henderson)
>   3. VHFNFD (Roger Dixon)
>   4. Re: How many people go contesting? (Steve Reed)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Tue, 01 Jul 2008 18:07:36 +0100
> From: "Richard Newstead" <g3cwi at btconnect.com>
> Subject: [UK-CONTEST] Bad Publicity
> To: "uk-contest at contesting.com" <uk-contest at contesting.com>
> Message-ID: <op.udmhuyfvpysffk at mail.tesco.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; delsp=yes;
> charset=iso-8859-15
>
> In my view, poor policing of contest rules is the factor that annoys
> non-contesters the most. The various contest Committees seem unable or
> unwilling to simply disqualify contesters who deliberately infringe the
> rules (in respect of frequency) or radiate incredibly poor signal (VHF
> especially).
>
> The wider perception is that contesters, after all, are all mates and so a
> gentle rebuke is the very most that will ever happen. Continued bad
> publicity is hardly surprising.
>
> 73
>
> Richard
> G3CWI
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Tue, 01 Jul 2008 17:59:38 +0000
> From: Bob Henderson <bob at 5b4agn.net>
> Subject: Re: [UK-CONTEST] Bad Publicity
> Cc: uk-contest at contesting.com
> Message-ID: <486A708A.8010809 at 5b4agn.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
> Richard,
>
> This is fascinating.   I favour disqualification for clear breaches of
> contest rules but I am a contester.  Hitherto I have imagined
> non-contesters wouldn't give a damn.
>
> I've long believed that difficulty in finding a clear frequency for
> non-contest pursuits is what most annoys those who don't share our 
> passion.
>
> What evidence supports your assertion?
>
> Bob, 5B4AGN
>
> Richard Newstead wrote:
>> In my view, poor policing of contest rules is the factor that annoys
>> non-contesters the most. The various contest Committees seem unable or
>> unwilling to simply disqualify contesters who deliberately infringe the
>> rules (in respect of frequency) or radiate incredibly poor signal (VHF
>> especially).
>>
>> The wider perception is that contesters, after all, are all mates and so 
>> a
>> gentle rebuke is the very most that will ever happen. Continued bad
>> publicity is hardly surprising.
>>
>> 73
>>
>> Richard
>> G3CWI
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> UK-Contest mailing list
>> UK-Contest at contesting.com
>> http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/uk-contest
>>
>>
>>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Tue, 1 Jul 2008 21:03:49 +0100
> From: "Roger Dixon" <lists at irdixon.plus.com>
> Subject: [UK-CONTEST] VHFNFD
> To: <vhf-contests at blacksheep.org>, <uk-contest at contesting.com>
> Message-ID: <002601c8dbb5$93e4d470$0201a8c0 at rogdownstairs>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>
> Gentlemen,
> A reminder that VHF National Field Day will take place this weekend from
> 14:00 GMT on Saturday July 5th until 14:00 on Sunday July 6th.
>
> Full rules can be found on www.vhfcc.org - rules - VHF National Field Day.
> Activity will take place on:
> 50MHz (6m) 1400 to 2200 Saturday (all mode)
> 70MHz (4m) 0800 to 1400 Sunday (all mode)
> 144MHz (2m) 1400 Saturday to 1400 Sunday (all mode)
> 432MHz (70cm) 1400 Saturday to 1400 Sunday (all mode)
> 1.3GHz (23cm) 1400 Saturday to 1400 Sunday (all mode)
>
> Any RSGB member or group of members may enter. Also, affiliated RSGB
> societies may enter and their operators must be members of the Affiliated
> Society (AFS) and/or members of the RSGB themselves.
>
> The closing date for site registrations was June 26th, however we will
> accept registrations until 12:00 on Wednesday July 2nd.  Individuals and
> groups may take part without registering their sites and will be tabulated
> in the results.  However only groups who have registered their sites will 
> be
> eligible for awards/certificates.
>
> Even if you only have a small amount of time available over the weekend,
> please support the guys out there by giving them a call.
>
> 73
> Roger - G4BVY
>
> RSGB Contests Committee.
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 4
> Date: Wed, 2 Jul 2008 00:19:48 -0000
> From: "Steve Reed" <steve at explore.plus.com>
> Subject: Re: [UK-CONTEST] How many people go contesting?
> To: "'UK Contest reflector'" <uk-contest at contesting.com>
> Message-ID: <005901c8dbd9$5664ec60$8800a8c0 at GWP.local>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
>
> Another source of data for "active band users" are cluster spots.  As a 
> test
> I downloaded all spots of G3 stations for 2007 from DX summit, stripped 
> off
> /P /M and similar suffixes, removed the odd "test" callsigns (e.g. G3XXX)
> and dumped the records into a database for analysis. Result:
>
> 3741 records
> 504 unique callsigns
> 259 calls with more than 1 spot
> 113 calls with 5 or more spots
> 4 calls with 100 or more spots
>
> Clearly some of the callsigns spotted only once will be busted.
>
> I would expect the list of callsigns would include most G3 active band 
> users
> - obviously contesters and Dxers, but a casual look through the data shows
> spots on all bands from VLF to GHz, and for QRP, Digital modes, EME, etc,
> etc.  Probably the only significant category of active band user not well
> represented are the local rag-chew merchants - although even they are
> sometimes spotted!
>
> Didn't take very long to do this, but extending the exercise for all G 
> calls
> would take a while.  Would it be worth it?  Would such data help in any
> useful way to working out overall levels of activity to compare with
> contest-only sources such as logs, contest results or supercheck 
> databases?
>
> Steve, G0AEV
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: uk-contest-bounces at contesting.com
> [mailto:uk-contest-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of Peter Hobbs
> Sent: 30 June 2008 22:04
> To: UK Contest reflector; Bob G3PJT
> Subject: Re: [UK-CONTEST] How many people go contesting?
>
> A poll of the RSGB QSL sub-managers would be a starting point.  They get
> some cards for everyone who's even modestly active (as opposed to the
> Sunday morning brigade), whether they bother to collect them or not and so
> wouldn't be too self-selecting.
> 73
> Peter G3LET
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Bob G3PJT" <g3pjt at btinternet.com>
> To: "Roger G3SXW" <g3sxw at btinternet.com>
> Cc: "UIK-Contest" <UK-Contest at contesting.com>
> Sent: Monday, June 30, 2008 10:07 PM
> Subject: Re: [UK-CONTEST] How many people go contesting?
>
>
>> Yes Roger but to make such comparisons one has to start with estimates.
>> To get the UK number of contesters is reasonably straightforward since I
>> guess that you only have to look at the big contest logs eg IOTA CQWW
>> and that will get most of them. For my purpose the difficult bit is
>> getting an estimate of the non-contesters who are active in the UK
>> amateur population. As you say this is a sum of minority interests of
>> which the casual chatterers are the most difficult to estimate. And
>> there are the inevitable overlaps. However I think it is worth a bit of
>> effort to work it out.
>>
>> 73 Bob G3PJT
>>
>> Roger G3SXW wrote:
>>> Bob,
>>> We have many sub-hobbies so I believe that it is *relative* size of
>>> population rather than actual size which matters. In other words there
>>> are x times more contesters than ATVers, y times more than ARDFers,
>>> etc. I think we all know that contesters are one of the biggest on-air
>>> sub-groups.
>>>
>>> I doubt that there is any way to make valid quantifications. If all
>>> RSGB contest logs could be dumped into one central data-base then you
>>> could see how many unique call-signs are present. The adjudicators
>>> would have to remove Busted calls first, and presumably single
>>> instances might be discounted, only designating a contester as such if
>>> he joins in (makes QSOs, not sends in logs) say minimum three contests
>>> per year.
>>>
>>> Just for comparison CQ World-Wide attracts some 30,000 different
>>> contesters to join in on the air each year (both modes, but with
>>> Busted calls removed).
>>> Cheers - 73 de Roger/G3SXW.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Bob G3PJT" <g3pjt at btinternet.com>
>>> To: "UK Contest" <uk-contest at contesting.com>
>>> Sent: Monday, June 30, 2008 6:05 PM
>>> Subject: [UK-CONTEST] How many people go contesting?
>>>
>>>
>>>> Hi
>>>>
>>>> I was told over the weekend that ,
>>>>
>>>> ' only 10% of the readership of RadCom go contesting' , with the
>>>> implication that not much attention should be given to contesting.
>>>>
>>>> As that 10% would be 2500 amateurs it seems to me that this might be 
>>>> 80%
>>>> of the truly active radio amateurs in the RSGB, active in the most
>>>> general sense..
>>>>
>>>> Anybody got any ideas as to how many RSGB members actually use our
>>>> spectrum on a regular basis?
>>>>
>>>> Or can you suggest a way I might estimate it?
>>>>
>>>> 73 Bob G3PJT
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> UK-Contest mailing list
>>>> UK-Contest at contesting.com
>>>> http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/uk-contest
>>>
>>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>
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> End of UK-Contest Digest, Vol 67, Issue 3
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